Glioblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in adults. Patients with this disease are often highly limited in their daily activities, as it impairs cognitive functions, talking and walking. The surgical removal of glioblastoma is never complete due to the infiltrative growth, therefore the combination of radiation-, and chemotherapy is necessary following surgery. However, given the lack of efficient therapies, prognosis is limited. Recent advances in targeted and immunotherapy with other cancer forms were not successful in the treatment of glioblastoma.
Based on the above, better understanding of glioblastoma biology is needed to improve therapy outcome. The Austrian clinical research group ATTRACT set out to perform a clinical study with the intention of improving treatment outcomes. Supported by the Ludwig Boltzmann Society and the participating institutes in Vienna, Graz, Innsbruck, Linz, Sankt Pölten, Salzburg, Klagenfurt, Wiener Neustadt and Feldkirch, ATTRACT aims at pushing the boundaries of biological and medical knowledge on glioblastoma. The collection of different biological samples - tumor tissue and blood - at diagnosis nationwide in 11 hospitals within the GlioBank program enables the execution of so-called translational research, connecting laboratory-based investigations with clinical application. Our comprehensive focus lies in characterizing the genetic and metabolic nature of the tumor of the patient in cohorts with in-depth clinical annotation.
Most importantly, we launched a clinical study building on the tumor material collected within the GlioBank program with the goal of offering patients a tailored treatment option. We are doing this by isolating tumor cells during standard surgical procedures to set up tumor-identical cell cultures in the laboratory of CBmed in Graz. We treat these cells with 28 different drugs to examine their tumor-killing effects. This procedure potentially gives us the opportunity to establish a functional precision medicine approach with the aim of matching the right drug to the right patient, thereby increasing the survival with this disease.
If you are a patient with suspicion of glioblastoma willing to facilitate scientific progress, talk to your treating clinician about the possibility of participating in GlioBank and in ATTRACT.