Kyrre Eeg Emblem joint first author on PNAS article
Photo Ram Gupta
Kyrre Eeg Emblem from the Interventional Center at OUS shares the first-authorship on a paper recently published in PNAS (journal impact factor 9.74), entitled "Improved tumor oxygenation and survival in glioblastoma patients who show increased blood perfusion after cediranib and chemoradiation", The authors here demonstrate that antiangiogenic therapy increases tumor blood perfusion in a subset of newly diagnosed glioblastoma patients, and that it is these patients who survive longer when this expensive and potentially toxic therapy is combined with standard radiation and chemotherapy. This study provides fresh insights into the selection of glioblastoma patients most likely to benefit from antiangiogenic treatments.
Participants in the study had advanced brain imaging including a technique called vessel architectural imaging (VAI), developed by Emblem and published earlier this year in Nature Medicine.
Of the 40 patients included, 20 were found to have persistent improvement in vessel perfusion and oxygen delivery by VAI. Those patients survived on average 9 months longer – 26 months, compared with 17 months – than those whose hemodynamic profile remained stable or worsened. A comparison group of glioblastoma patients treated with radiation and chemotherapy only survived an average of 14 months with no signs of improvement by imaging.
More research is needed, but these findings suggest that MR imaging techniques should play an essential role in future studies of anti-angiogenic drugs in glioblastoma and possibly other types of solid tumors.
Links:
Improved tumor oxygenation and survival in glioblastoma patients who show increased blood perfusion after cediranib and chemoradiation.
Batchelor TT, Gerstner ER, Emblem KE, Duda DG, Kalpathy-Cramer J, Snuderl M, Ancukiewicz M, Polaskova P, Pinho MC, Jennings D, Plotkin SR, Chi AS, Eichler AF, Dietrich J, Hochberg FH, Lu-Emerson C, Iafrate AJ, Ivy SP, Rosen BR, Loeffler JS, Wen PY, Sorensen AG, Jain RK.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2013 Nov 4.
Press release about the findings from Massachusetts General Hospital:
Imaging studies may predict tumor response to anti-angiogenic drugs:
Study confirms that vascular normalization is the way these drugs improve patient survival
Previous news article about Kyrre Eeg Emblem's research, with many links included:
Researchers from the Interventional Centre introduce new paradigm in Nature Medicine article
Kyrre Eeg Emblem's publications