For people facing aggressive brain cancer, the outlook is usually grim. Even after surgery, tumors often return, and patients typically survive just four to five months.
But a new clinical study suggests a promising combination therapy could substantially extend survival by helping the immune system do what it has long struggled to do in the brain: reach and attack cancer cells.
Researchers report that pairing a minimally invasive laser procedure with immunotherapy allowed nearly half of treated patients to still be alive 18 months later. The findings, published in Nature Communications, point to a potential new strategy for tackling one of oncology’s most difficult challenges.
“Patients with this type of advanced cancer have few remaining options and poor outcomes, and this approach could meaningfully extend their survival time and provide new hope for patients and their loved ones," explained David Tran, chief of neuro-oncology with Keck Medicine, in a press release.
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A Promising New Procedure for Brain Cancer
The new approach centers on laser interstitial thermal therapy, or LITT, a technique that uses precisely delivered heat to destroy tumor tissue. During the procedure, neurosurgeons rely on MRI guidance to insert a thin probe directly into the tumor and carefully apply laser energy, ensuring the laser destroys cancer cells while healthy brain tissue remains unharmed.
Explore All OptionsBut LITT does more than kill tumor cells. The heat temporarily disrupts the blood-brain barrier — a tightly sealed layer of cells that normally protects the brain from harmful substances in the bloodstream. While this barrier is essential for brain health, it also blocks immune cells and many cancer drugs from reaching brain tumors.
That disruption turned out to be a key feature of this new treatment.
“This alerts T-cells to the presence of the tumor and provides easy passage of these T-cells to rush in, find and attack the tumor,” said Tran in the release.
In the clinical trial, patients received LITT followed by the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab. Once the procedure loosened the barrier, tumor materials could leak into the bloodstream, alerting the immune system. Activated T-cells were then able to enter the brain and attack the cancer.
How Successful Was LITT?
The results of LITT were dramatic. Nearly half of patients treated with LITT followed by pembrolizumab were still alive 18 months after the treatment began. In contrast, none of the patients who underwent conventional surgery followed by the same immunotherapy survived to the 18-month mark.
Additionally, more than one-third of patients in the LITT group lived longer than three years — far exceeding the typical survival window for recurrent high-grade astrocytoma.
“These results suggest that LITT can help the immune checkpoint inhibitor pembrolizumab work more effectively against high-grade astrocytoma,” said Tran in the release.
Since the trial began, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared LITT for treating certain brain tumors, opening a regulatory path for broader use.
Why Brain Cancer Is So Hard to Treat
Brain cancers like astrocytoma are uniquely difficult because of the blood-brain barrier. While immune checkpoint inhibitors can stop cancer recurrence in many parts of the body, they typically fail in the brain because immune cells simply can’t get through.
By temporarily opening that barrier, LITT may finally give immunotherapy a fighting chance — and patients more time.
This article is not offering medical advice and should be used for informational purposes only.
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Article Sources
Our writers at Discovermagazine.com use peer-reviewed studies and high-quality sources for our articles, and our editors review for scientific accuracy and editorial standards. Review the sources used below for this article:
- This article references information from a new study published in Nature Communications: Laser interstitial thermal therapy and adjuvant pembrolizumab in recurrent high-grade astrocytoma: a Phase 1/randomized Phase 2b trial
