About 13,000 Americans will be diagnosed with glioblastoma in 2022 and 10,000 people with glioblastoma will die. Now, neuro-oncologists are testing a tumor-treating helmet-like device in pediatric patients. It's designed to stop cancer cells from dividing and taking hold again.
Ivan Galeano was with his mother when the normally healthy teen felt his left pinky go numb.
"And then from there it started spreading to the hand and into the arm," Ivan said.
"I thought at first this is like a heart attack. He thought it was a heart attack. So, he started screaming," said Ivan's mother, Vicmarie Del Valle.
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Ivan was rushed to a nearby hospital. Doctors determined it wasn't a heart attack. It was a seizure. Then an MRI found something else.
"It was like a shadow on the right side of my brain," Ivan said.
Doctors diagnosed Ivan with glioblastoma, or GBM, aggressive brain cancer.
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"Now we're facing this monster and we're going to do whatever it takes to get rid of it," Del Valle said.
GBM treatment is tricky.
"There's always tumor cells left behind with glioblastoma. And that's what makes it particularly challenging is that even when we remove the entire tumor, we know it's still not all out," said Derek Hanson, MD of Hackensack Meridian Children's Health Joseph M. Sanzari Children's Hospital.
That's why Dr. Hanson wanted to try a treatment that is showing promise in adults but not yet approved for use in kids. A special device called Optune, worn on the head, with four leads attached to the scalp.
"And these four leads send electric signals called tumor treating fields into the brain directed at the tumor," Hanson said.
Patients don't feel the signals, which disrupt the cancer cell growth. They wear the 2-pound cap for 18 hours a day, even while they sleep.
"I'll just deal with whatever I have to do," Ivan said.
So far, the experimental treatment is working.
"So they have been no recurrence since Ivan had surgery," Del Valle said.
Hackensack University Medical Center is the lead site for the phase one clinical trial and along with Arnold Palmer Children's Hospital in Orlando, researchers are evaluating the Optune device, along with chemotherapy for pediatric treatment.
Dr. Hanson says the researchers are in discussions to expand the trial to a phase two, which would involve additional childrens' hospitals.
