Dr Souweidane CED Trial on 8th Patient

The Cristian Rivera Foundation, a significant support of the Cornell convection enhanced delivery (CED) trial for newly diagnosed children with DIPG, announced in their April 2013 newsletter that the primary investigator, Dr. Mark Souweidane, is now up to his 8th patient in this trial that opened at the end of 2012.

This is a very exciting, innovative trial for DIPG where a catheter is placed from the top of the head down in to the brainstem.   A few weeks after traditional radiation, a radiolabelled antibiody is infused directly in to the pons.   Thus, the blood brain barrier is no longer a problem in getting an agent into the tumor.

This is different than other DIPG CED trials in that it uses a radiolabelled antibody.   The antibody is
8H9 which has been found in several different tumors.   This is linked to 124I which is radioactive.   Since radiation has been the only thing that has made a dent in survival statistics the hope seems that this targeted radiation will clean up some of the cancer cells that have thus far been radioresistant with routine radiation.

This trial is the culmination of more than a decade of research utlitizing CED in the brainstem undertaken by Dr Souweidane and his team at Cornell.  Below is a video illustrating how CED is performed.

For more information about this trial,  about the trial and contact information for Dr. Soweidane click here.

Related Blog Post:
UK Gives CED a Go
http://dipg.blogspot.com/2013/04/uk-gives-ced-go.html