Glioblastoma Foundation to Fund Combination Drug Trial for Newly Diagnosed Glioblastoma Patients

Dr. Fabio Iwamoto; Columbia University

Survival for glioblastoma has not improved in two decades, and progress has been elusive over the last 30-50 years. There have been small advances of 1-2 months additional survival, but nothing measurable.

Not since Temozolomide was added to the standard of care in 2005 has survival improved for glioblastoma patients. Today, Temozolomide is an important component of glioblastoma therapy for patients.

The relatively low toxicity of Temozolomide has encouraged researchers to consider the addition of another chemotherapeutic agent in combination with Temozolomide for newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients. Several studies have examined the addition of Lomustine to Temozolomide with encouraging results.  These studies have found there may be a survival benefit with combination Temozolomide-Lomustine therapy in newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients with methylated MGMT promotor.  Previous studies examining combination Temozolomide-Lomustine therapy have been small but promising.  In prior work, Lomustine was shown to nearly double survival in newly diagnosed MGMT methylated glioblastoma patients with only small increases in side effect profile. More research is needed to determine whether combination therapy with Temozolomide-Lomustine does indeed provide significant survival benefit for patients with glioblastoma and whether the side effect profile of this combination therapy is tolerable.

The Glioblastoma Foundation is proud to announce it is funding a new, multi-center, phase III trial led by Dr. Fabio Iwamoto of the Department of Neuro-Oncology at Columbia University to study the drug Lomustine in combination with Temozolomide for newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients with MGMT promotor methylation!

The study will seek to enroll over 300 patients in order to test whether treatment with two agents, Temozolomide and Lomustine, plus radiotherapy (RT), will improve overall survival versus treatment with only one agent, Temozolomide alone, plus RT.

The goal of this study is to confirm the potential significant benefit of combination Temozolomide-Lomustine therapy for newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients and to determine whether the combination of these two chemotherapeutic agents can be adopted as the standard of care for newly diagnosed MGMT promotor methylated glioblastoma patients.

Lomustine is currently considered to be the standard of care for recurrent glioblastoma patients.

The Glioblastoma Foundation is proud to support this work that truly brings to life our mission to transform glioblastoma therapy!  Please join us in congratulating Dr. Iwamoto and his team as they work to determine whether Temozolomide-Lomustine combination therapy can significantly improve survival for newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients.

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