A year has passed since Dr. Richard Scolyer, an Australian physician, underwent an unprecedented treatment for glioblastoma, and he continues to be free from cancer.
This distinguished pathologist’s experimental therapy is a product of his groundbreaking melanoma research.
The type of glioblastoma that Prof. Scolyer has is so aggressive that most patients don’t survive beyond a year. However, the 57-year-old recently announced that his latest MRI scan showed no signs of the tumor returning.
“I must admit, I was more anxious than I’ve ever been for any previous scan,” he confessed to the BBC. “I’m simply overjoyed… I couldn’t be more pleased.”
Prof. Scolyer is one of Australia’s most esteemed medical professionals, and he was named Australian of the Year alongside his colleague and friend Georgina Long this year, in honor of their transformative work on melanoma.
As the co-directors of the Melanoma Institute Australia, their research on immunotherapy, which employs the body’s immune system to combat cancer cells, has significantly improved the prognosis for advanced melanoma patients worldwide over the past decade. Now, half of these patients are essentially cured, a dramatic increase from less than 10%.
This research is what Prof. Long and a team of doctors are using to treat Prof. Scolyer, with the hope of finding a cure for his cancer as well. In melanoma, Prof. Long, a renowned medical oncologist herself, and her team found that immunotherapy is more effective when a combination of drugs is used and administered before any surgery to remove a tumor. As a result, Prof. Scolyer became the first brain cancer patient to receive combination, pre-surgery immunotherapy last year.
He is also the first to receive a vaccine tailored to his tumor’s characteristics, enhancing the cancer-detecting abilities of the drugs.
After a challenging few months of treatment at the beginning of the year, dealing with epileptic seizures, liver problems, and pneumonia, Prof. Scolyer reports feeling healthier. “I feel better than I have in ages,” he said, noting that he’s back to daily exercise, which often includes a casual 15km (9.3 mile) jog.
“It certainly doesn’t mean that my brain cancer is cured… but it’s comforting to know that it hasn’t returned yet, so I have more time to enjoy life with my wife Katie and my three wonderful children.”
The results so far have sparked immense excitement that the pair may be on the verge of a breakthrough that could potentially benefit the approximately 300,000 people diagnosed with brain cancer worldwide each year.
Prof. Scolyer and Prof. Long have previously stated that the chances of a cure are “tiny”, but they hope the experimental treatment will extend Prof. Scolyer’s life and soon lead to clinical trials for glioblastoma patients.
They currently have a scientific paper under review detailing the initial weeks of Prof. Scolyer’s treatment, but Prof. Long emphasizes that they are still far from developing an approved and regulated treatment regimen.
“We’ve gathered a wealth of data to lay the groundwork for the next step, so we can help more people,” she said. “We’re not there yet. Our main focus now is to demonstrate that this pre-surgery, combination immunotherapy approach works in a large number of people.”
Earlier this year, Roger Stupp, the doctor for whom the current glioblastoma treatment protocol is named, told the BBC that Prof. Scolyer’s prognosis was “grim” and that it was too soon to determine if the treatment was effective.
He added that while Mr. Scolyer’s earlier results were “promising”, he wanted to see him reach 12 months, or even 18, without recurrence before getting excited.
Prof. Scoyler said he’s already proud of the data his treatment has generated and grateful to his family and his medical team for supporting “this experiment”.
“I feel proud of the team that I work with. I feel proud that they’re willing to take the risk in going down this path.”
“[It] provides some hope that maybe this is a direction that’s worth investigating more formally.”
