title: Brain Tumor Study Group: a survey of current activities.
abstract: Improvement in the treatment of patients harboring malignant glioma will probably be seen as small incremental changes as new modalities of treatment are proposed, tested, and substantiated. Uncontrolled phase II studies may provide hints of efficacy. However, the results must be substantiated in carefully controlled phase III evaluations. The Brain Tumor Study Group of the National Cancer Institute has demonstrated that mithramycin is not effective in the treatment of malignant glioma and the overall median survivorship experience is no different than the 23 weeks found in historic controls. Radiotherapy can bring about a meaningful increase in survival as can 1,3-bis(2-chloroethyl)-1-nitrosourea. The combination appears to produce more long-term survivors than either treatment above. Methyl-1-(2-chloroethyl)-3-(4-methylcyclohexyl)-1-nitrosourea does not appear to be additive to radiotherapy but is more effective than no therapy at all. Studies of the oncolytic effect of corticosteroids in contradistinction to their cerebral edema controlling effects are being done and will provide meaningful data on this important symptomatolytic therapy.
mesh_terms: D001932:Brain Neoplasms / Q000628:therapy*; D002330:Carmustine / Q000627:therapeutic use; D002986:Clinical Trials as Topic; D004341:Drug Evaluation; D005910:Glioma / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D009316:National Institutes of Health (U.S.); D008926:Plicamycin / Q000627:therapeutic use; D012107:Research Design; D012673:Semustine / Q000627:therapeutic use; D014481:United States
chemical_list: D012673:Semustine; D008926:Plicamycin; D002330:Carmustine