Can Cancer Advances Save Kennedy?

May 22, 2008 — -- When the Wilson family found out that Sen. Ted Kennedy had been diagnosed with brain cancer, they sent him an optimistic note.

"I just wanted him to know that there is some hope," said Marty Wilson, 55, whose mother, Cleora, was diagnosed with brain cancer two years ago. "Though it's not curable, it is treatable."

The note may be a poignant reminder that Kennedy is not alone with his disease. Doctors diagnose about 180,000 new cases of brain cancers each year. Of those, gliomas are the most common type of brain tumor, and malignant gliomas are the most aggressive -- and deadly.

For any patient, such a diagnosis would be devastating and Kennedy has not always had a clean bill of health. Just six months ago, he had surgery to correct a narrowed carotid artery.

At 76 years old, he is also among the older patients with this condition -- which, like many medical conditions, has been known to carry a worse prognosis with increasing age.

Still, cancer experts are not concerned that Kennedy will be precluded from potentially promising new treatments because of his age or his medical history -- which ultimately means that the decision will probably be the senator's when it comes to his course of treatment.

Cleora Wilson, 76, has more in common with Kennedy than her age. She also had a malignant glioma and underwent surgery to remove it, followed by radiation and chemotherapy.

But this traditional treatment for brain cancer had limitations. If a surgeon tried to remove a brain tumor completely, the procedure would also remove precious neurons and brain cells that continue to help the body function normally. Radiation and chemotherapy, while they can be effective at killing cancer cells, are also effective at killing healthy cells.

"These drugs are nonspecific poisons," said Dr. Howard Fine, chief of the neuro-oncology branch at the National Cancer Institute, adding that they can be like setting off bombs. "You hope that when the smoke clears that the bad guys are dead and the good ones are still standing."