Clinical trial shows ‘dramatic and rapid’ progress against brain cancer [Video]

A new treatment for a lethal brain cancer known as glioblastoma has shown remarkable early results, new research from the Mass General Cancer Center in Boston shows. The New England Journal of Medicine published results of a phase 1 clinical trial of a novel CAR-T used in patients with recurring glioblastoma, which showed dramatic and rapid tumor reduction.The team at the Mass General Cancer Center said the treatment’s impact on glioblastoma tumors was unlike anything they’d seen with other therapies. The treatment is a new kind of what’s known as CAR-T cell therapy — an approach that arms the body’s own T-cells to fight the patient’s cancer.The treatment is already standard care for many cancers, but this new therapy adds specially engineered T-cells — injected directly into the fluid around the brain — which enlist other cells around them to target and kill the tumor.Dr. Marcela Maus, whose MGH lab …