Professor Olivier CHINOT, Head of the Department of Neuro-Oncology at the Hôpital de la Timone (AP-HM) and Professor at the Faculty of Medicine (Aix-Marseille Université), conducted an international study Published on 20 February 2014 in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine1

This study called Avaglio reports the first progress since 2005 in the treatment of patients with glioblastoma.

This form of brain tumor is the most common primary brain cancer in adults and also the most aggressive. It usually affects people between 50 and 70 years of age. Difficult to treat, glioblastomas are associated with a rapid functional and intellectual degradation during their progression.

The study demonstrates that the use of an anti-angiogenic, the bevacizumab, (Avastin, Laboratoire Roche) significantly increases the duration of control of the disease (about 70%), when it is associated with the conventional treatment by radiotherapy and chemotherapy.

Furthermore, during this phase of control of the disease, the patient maintains his autonomy, his quality of life, and his cognitive abilities. The additional toxicity of this treatment appears acceptable.

This study is a first step; further analyzes are under way to determine which patients can benefit from this treatment if it is to be used immediately or in case of escape from the standard treatment.

In another study, Marseilles teams have already identified a potential marker, measurable in the blood before any treatment, that could meet this objective. (This work has just been published²).

This progress is the result of an international collective effort, involving 120 centers and 23 countries, in which France has been particularly active: 921 patients included in the world including 120 in France.

The management of this international study by a doctor of the Public-Hospital Hospitals of Marseille and Aix-Marseille University highlights the dynamics of hospital-university teams Marseille in this discipline and in clinical research in general. AP-HM and AMU demonstrate once again by this publication the excellence of their hospital-university teams and the positioning of these institutions to the international level.

Developed for more than 15 years, brain tumors constitute an axis of care and research involving many doctors, surgeons, researchers and an association of patients (the ARTC Sud), which work to identify and test the progress of tomorrow. These teams were recently labeled by the National Cancer Institute under the auspices of SIRIC de Marseille (Integrated Cancer Research Site in partnership with the Institut Paoli Calmettes).

¹ Bevacizumab Plus Radiotherapy/Temozolomide for Newly Diagnosed Glioblastoma
Olivier L. Chinot, MD; Wolfgang Wick, MD; Warren Mason, MD, FRCPC; Roger Henriksson, MD; Frank Saran MD; Ryo Nishikawa, MD; Antoine F. Carpentier, MD, PhD; Khe Hoang-Xuan, MD, PhD; Petr Kavan, MD, PhD; Dana Cernea, PhD; Alba A. Brandes, MD; Magalie Hilton, MSc; Lauren Abrey, MD; and Timothy Cloughesy, MDN Engl J Med 2014 ;370 :709-22

² Association of matrix metalloproteinase 2 plasma level with response and survival in patients treated with bevacizumab for recurrent high-grade glioma.

Tabouret E, Boudouresque F, Barrie M, Matta M, Boucard C, Loundou A, Carpentier A, Sanson M, Metellus P, Figarella-Branger D, Ouafik L, Chinot O.
Neuro Oncol. 2013 Dec 9. [Epub ahead of print]PMID: 24327581[PubMed - as supplied by publisher]