Doctors managed to cure a man with the most aggressive form of brain tumor

Ben and Emily Trotman

Photo: The National Brain Appeal

41-year-old Briton Ben Trotman, who was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer, recovered thanks to experimental treatment.

As informs The Times, doctors diagnosed the man with glioblastoma (an aggressive form of cancer that causes tumors to grow in the brain) in October 2022. Then the doctors said that with such a diagnosis he had no more than nine months to live.

Usually, this form of oncology is treated with radiation or chemotherapy, followed by surgery to remove most of the tumor. This treatment scheme has been used since the beginning of the 2000s.

But the end result of such a regimen has always been disappointing, says Dr. Paul Mulholland, a leading brain cancer specialist at University College Hospital London.

Sometimes the patients went into remission, but in the end, almost always, the disease returned and quickly killed the patient. Sometimes the tumor could double in size in just seven weeks after treatment.

Paul Mulholland suggested that his patients undergo a course of immunotherapy before the standard course of treatment. This method activates the body’s protective functions and strengthens its fight against cancer cells.

The only one who agreed was Ben Trotman. The result of the experiment was that no tumors were found in his brain after using the proposed scheme. Dr. Mulholland said that the man’s immune system destroyed the cancer on its own.

Ben Trotman started standard treatment last January and now continues with monthly chemotherapy.

The scientist is convinced that the results of this experiment will help to find effective drugs not only for glioblastoma, but also for other aggressive types of cancer that are usually not amenable to treatment.

Glioblastoma is a fairly aggressive type of oncology. In medical practice, only 5% of cases where patients lived five years after treatment are known. For this, the tumor is called a “silent killer.”

Earlier we wrote about how cancer is treated in Ukraine and whether there is government financial assistance for patients, as well as what to do, if the child has been diagnosed with cancer.

Anzhelika Talaban, “UP. Life”