Researchers from the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis have found a way to improve brain cancer treatment: laser therapy. This technology has played an increasingly larger role in brain cancer therapy over the past 15 years as an alternative to open skull surgery. The research team has spent years studying a technique called laser interstitial thermal therapy, or LITT, to improve the overall treatment experience and outcomes for brain cancer patients.
The procedure works by guiding a slim, machine-controlled probe through a narrow, drilled opening and monitoring its path on live imaging to avoid tissue it shouldn’t touch. Once positioned, the tip then warms up enough to destroy the malignant cells around it.
Open craniotomy involves lifting away a section of bone and can mean a long stretch of healing afterward; this approach instead leaves behind a wound smaller than a dime.
Investigators followed participants for as long as half a decade across roughly two dozen sites nationwide. The resulting dataset is among the largest ever gathered on this laser technique, researchers said, covering tumors that form in the brain itself as well as ones that spread there from cancer elsewhere in the body.
Beyond glioblastoma, the analysis turned up a notable pattern for tumors that had spread to the brain after earlier radiation treatment. Outcomes improved when doctors intervened while lesions were still tiny, pushing back against the standard approach of holding off across several rounds of scans until growth is confirmed.
The study also documented benefits beyond survival numbers. The typical hospital stay ran about a day and a half, and few patients ended up back in intensive care or readmitted afterward. Many also required fewer seizure-control drugs following the operation than they had beforehand.
Day-to-day functioning held up well, and the procedure carried few complications, the researchers reported.
Study lead author Eric Leuthardt, a professor of neurological surgery at WashU Medicine, said his goal was to help brain tumor patients live longer without sacrificing their quality of life in the meantime.
Pinpointing what separates the best outcomes from the rest, he said, gives doctors a sharper read on who is most likely to benefit from this option. Leuthardt framed the results as evidence that the entire approach to brain tumor care is changing.
He argued that a safer path home within about a day means something profound for patients who have just been given a grim timeline. The research, funded by Monteris Medical Corp., maker of the NeuroBlate laser system used in the procedure, was published in the Journal of Clinical Oncology.
As more brain cancer treatment options like the laser therapy highlighted in this study, and the novel medications being developed by pharmaceutical firms like CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) gain widespread clinical use, patients are set to see a significant improvement in their clinical outcomes over the coming years.
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