Netflix Actor Welcomes New Development In Brain Tumour Drug

The Netflix actor Craig Russell, who has undergone meningioma treatment for a slow-growing brain tumour, has welcomed the news of groundbreaking drug research.

Amethyst Radiotherapy News  |  October 7, 2024

Netflix Actor Welcomes New Development In Brain Tumour Drug

The Netflix actor Craig Russell, who has undergone invasive meningioma treatment for a slow-growing brain tumour, has welcomed the news of groundbreaking research by scientists at the University of Plymouth that could potentially lead to less invasive brain tumour treatments.

BBC News reports that the team at the Brain Tumour Research Centre of Excellence have discovered that by targeting a protein called Mertk on the surface of the tumour cells with drugs, the tissue growth can be stopped in lab tests. The protein is known to be responsible for the development of other types of cancer.

Father of two Mr Russel, 47, is an actor, writer and producer from Cornwall who has starred in the Netflix series Queen Cleopatra. He was diagnosed with a meningioma last year after suffering months of migraine attacks and brain fog. He has undergone surgery to remove the tumour, which required his skull to be ‘rebuilt’ afterwards.

Commenting on the new research, Mr Russel said: “This development is huge. The surgery to remove my meningioma lasted nearly seven hours. I had to have my skull rebuilt and so even though the tumour is now a thing of the past, I’m still, 18 months later, recovering from surgery.”

He added: “To think that, hopefully in the not-too-distant future, people with low-grade tumours can be treated in this way, means that sufferers and their families won’t have to go through what we did.”

What is meningioma?

Meningiomas are  tumours that start in the layers of tissue that cover the brain and the spinal cord. They are mostly non-cancerous and do not always cause symptoms. They are the most common type of brain tumour diagnosed in the UK according to Cancer Research, accounting for 27 per cent of all diagnosis between 1995 and 2017.

In cases where symptoms are present, these might include seizures, loss of eyesight, hearing loss, and weakness in the arms and legs, but the specific symptoms will depend on the location of the brain tumour.

How are meningiomas treated?

The treatment will depend on whether the tumour is slow or fast growing, and the location of the tumour in the brain. Slow growing or low-grade tumours may be actively monitored with regular MRI scans, and treatment given if the tumour shows signs of growing.

Fast growing or high-grade tumours may be removed with neurosurgery, which involves physically opening up the skull to remove the tumour. If surgery is not possible or if not all of the tumour could be removed, the patient may be offered radiotherapy, or stereotactic radiosurgery.

This involves using highly targeted doses of gamma radiation to kill the tumour cells. The treatment may be delivered in one session, or across multiple sessions, depending on the size and location of the tumour.

Hope for less invasive tumour treatments

It is currently very difficult to treat brain tumours with drugs because of the difficulties in crossing the blood-brain barrier, which is a dense network of cells that lines the blood vessels of the brain. It is designed to prevent harmful substances from crossing into the brain, but it also blocks potentially helpful drugs from entering.

This means that brain tumour patients often have little alternative to highly invasive surgery that can be hugely challenging to recover physically and emotionally from. However, research is currently ongoing into innovative drug therapies that could one day successfully treat many types of brain tumour.

The latest exciting development by the team at the University of Plymouth is another example of the ongoing efforts that could transform the lives of thousands of patients and their families.

Dr Sylwia Ammoun, who led the research, said: “There are many drugs being developed to target MERTK, including some going through clinical trials for other cancer types. Thus, this research offers hope to patients with meningioma and schwannoma tumours that a new treatment may be on the horizon.”

“Research presented in this paper was possible due to the hard work and dedication of PhD students, Dr Foram Dave and Kevin Herrera.”

It is hoped that the next part of the research will involve clinical trials at locations around the UK.

One potentially effective and non-invasive treatment method for meningioma is Gamma Knife surgery, which has proven successful long-term outcomes as the standard of care for the last 40 years or so.

If you would like some more information about trigeminal neuralgia or meningioma treatment, please contact Mr Patrick Grover of Amethyst Radiotherapy.


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