Now Available–Portable Treatment for Glioblastoma
The Adena Cancer Center is proud to be the first center in Southern Ohio to offer Optune, a therapy to help treat glioblastoma.
Optune is a FDA-approved therapy for glioblastoma (GBM), the most common and deadliest type of primary brain cancer.
Optune is a wearable, portable device that has been shown in clinical trials to safely deliver continuous therapy to the location of GBM tumors
Optune is the first FDA-approved therapy in more than a decade for newly diagnosed GBM. This device is approved for the treatment of adult patients (22 years of age or older) with GBM.
Optune creates low-intensity electric fields, called Tumor Treating Fields, or TTFields, which help slow or stop GBM cancer cells from dividing and may also cause some of them to die. TTFields work when cancer cells are dividing and do not disrupt healthy resting cells.
For patients with newly diagnosed GBM, Optune is used together with the chemotherapy temozolomide (TMZ) after surgery and radiation with TMZ.
For recurrent patients, it can be used alone when surgery and radiation treatment options have been exhausted. In a clinical trial, adding Optune to TMZ was proven to delay GBM tumor growth and extend survival in newly diagnosed patients compared with TMZ alone.
Because TTFields do not enter the bloodstream like a drug, they did not cause many of the side effects of chemotherapy, like infections, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and lowered blood counts.
Optune weighs approximately 2.7 lbs. Its lightweight design allows patients to go about their daily activities while receiving treatment.
Optune uses four adhesive patches, called transducer arrays, to deliver therapy. These transducer arrays are applied to the shaved scalp and are connected to the device and battery.
Optune showed an unprecedented five-year survival advantage. The five-year survival rate for patients treated with Optune and TMZ was 13 percent compared to five percent in patients treated with TMZ alone.4
Approximately half, or 48%, of the people who used Optune with TMZ were alive at 2 years or longer, compared to 32% who were on TMZ alone. Patients lived longer with Optune in combination with TMZ compared to TMZ alone.
For more information about this device, go to Optune.com.