The first brain cancer patient was a 13-year-old Belgian boy. Lucas Jemeljanova, six, was diagnosed with diffuse intrinsic pontine glioma (DIPG), a rare and severe brain tumor that kills 98% of patients within five years. A clinical experiment randomly allocated him to receive Everolimus, a chemotherapeutic medication that treats kidney, pancreas, breast, and brain cancer but not DIPG.
Disappearing Tumor
The treatment worked on Lucas and the tumor disappeared. Seven years later, Lucas is cancer-free and in remission for five years. Doctor Jacques Grill said Lucas ‘broke all the odds’ and that his situation ‘offers real hope.’
Against All Odds: French Trial Offers Hope for DIPG
Father and mother Cedric and Olesja took him to France to be one of the first participants in the BIOMEDE experiment, which tested novel DIPG medications. Everolimus blocks mTOR, a protein that helps cancer cells divide, develop, and form blood vessels.
Reducing Cancer Progression
Preventing cancer cell reproduction and limiting blood supply to tumor cells reduces cancer progression. The FDA approves the medication for treating various malignancies. ScienceAlert reports that until a year and a half ago, doctors were hesitant to cease treatment, but Lucas had stopped regardless. “I didn’t know when to stop, or how, because there was no reference in the world,” stated Dr. Grill.
Watching the Tumors Disappear
‘Over a series of MRI scans, I watched as the tumor completely disappeared,’ his doctor, Paris’ Gustave Roussy Cancer Centre brain tumor program head Jacques Grill, told AFP. Why Lucas recovered well is unknown. Seven other children in the research were ‘long responders’ after three years without relapses, but Lucas’s tumor was completely gone. Dr. Grill speculated that ‘biological particularities’ of tumors may explain why some children responded to the medications and others did not. He stated ‘Lucas’s tumor has an exceedingly unusual mutation which we believe made its cells considerably more receptive to the medicine.’
A Race Against Time: Understanding DIPG, a Rare and Aggressive Childhood Brain Tumour
DIPG affects 300 children annually, according to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Nine months is the median survival after diagnosis. DIPG affects children aged 5–9. The cause of this tumor near the base of the brain and top of the spine is unknown. The tumor presses on the pons, which controls breathing, sleeping, and blood pressure.
Multiple Tumor Effects
A tumor affects heartbeat, breathing, swallowing, eyesight, and balance over time. Eye movement, face paralysis, difficulties walking, unusual limb motions, and balance problems are early tumor symptoms. Lucas was diagnosed with the illness at six years old during his summer vacation. He could not walk straight, peed poorly, passed out, and had nosebleeds.
From Rare Case to Potential Cure: Replicating a Spontaneous Recovery in Cancer Treatment
Researchers are trying to replicate Lucas’s cell difference. Lucas may have had a rare ailment. Dr. Grill remarked, ‘We must understand what and why to succeed in medically duplicating what happened spontaneously with him. Researchers are studying patients’ tumors’ genetic anomalies and growing tumor ‘organoids’, which resemble organs.
Genetic Variations
The team intends to recreate Lucas’s genetic variations in organoids to eliminate tumors like his. ‘The next step will be to find a medicine that has the same effect on tumor cells as these biological alterations,’ lab supervisor Marie-Anne Debily said. The process will take time. Dr. Grill said it takes 10-15 years from the first lead to become a medicine, a long process.
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