Newswise — A new approach to treating the most malignant type of brain cancer – glioblastoma – has shown strong promise in pre-clinical settings, raising hopes of increasing current average survival rates beyond 18 months. Targeted alpha therapy (TAT) is emerging as a potential additional treatment for glioblastoma (GB), a disease which has confounded oncologists for decades due to its aggressive nature and strong resistance to existing therapies. The current standard treatment for GB is surgery, followed by external beam radiotherapy and the chemotherapy drug, temozolomide.
However, survival rates of less than 5-10% at five years have prompted researchers to explore alternative options. University of South Australia scientists are conducting their own experiments with TAT and have reviewed existing clinical studies to assess the viability of targeted alpha therapy as a treatment option for recurrent glioblastoma. In a new paper published in Targeted Oncology , UniSA PhD candidate Maram El Sabri , medical radiation physicist Professor Eva Bezak and oncologist Professor Frank Saran outline the evidence supporting TAT.
“Unlike external beam radiotherapy, which delivers radiation more diffusely over a larger volume, TAT delivers high amounts of lethal radiation to the tumour at very short range, hitting its target without significantly affecting surrounding healthy tissue,” says Maram. “Alpha particles are up to 10 times more potent, when compared to standard photon .