An innovative phase 2 clinical trial led by Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in collaboration with 10 major brain tumor centers around the country and designed to find new potential treatments for glioblastoma has reported initial results in the Journal of Clinical Oncology. While none of the three therapeutics tested so far improved overall survival of patients, this adaptive platform trial, the first of its kind in neuro-oncology, has the potential to rapidly and efficiently identify therapies that benefit patients.
The trial, called INSIGhT, is still underway testing additional therapies.
“There have been many failed attempts to find better therapies for glioblastoma,” says co-first author Rifaquat Rahman, MD, a radiation oncologist at Dana-Farber. “This new trial design meets a need for a more efficient and smarter way to find new therapies.”
Patients with glioblastoma, the most common primary brain tumor, have few effective treatment options. Those with a form of the disease called MGMT unmethylated glioblastoma fare the worst and rarely respond to the standard therapy of radiation plus chemotherapy.
