Dr. Santosh Kesari, co-director of the Pacific Brain Tumor Center and Professor of Neuro-oncology at the Saint John's Cancer Institute describes the philosophy and approach to current and future clinical trials for patients with brain tumors and/or brain cancer.
My name is Dr santosh Kesari, Director of neuropsychology at the pacific neuroscience institute and the john Wayne cancer institute. My expertise is in the non surgical management of all brain cancers as well as the aggressive subtypes of brain and skull based tumors. As a neuropsychologist, I coordinate the treatment for all brain tumor patients, working closely with my colleagues in neurosurgery, radiation oncology and medical oncology. While surgical removal is often the first and only treatment needed for benign brain tumors, other malignant brain tumors such as glioblastoma, astra site Omagh's and metastatic brain cancers will require additional treatments including chemotherapy, immunotherapy and radiation therapy. Many of our patients can enter into clinical trials that offer innovative therapies for all brain cancers including glioblastoma and other cancers that have spread to the brain from the breast, lung and skin. Under the direction of Dr Daniel kelly, Dr Garni Barkhad, Aryan and myself. We conduct clinical trials for patients with high grade gliomas, other brain cancers including skull based tumors and pituitary adenomas depending upon the specifics of the patient's tumor type and prior treatments. The use of standard therapies clinical trials or a combined approach may offer the best long term solution. Fortunately it's a very exciting time in your oncology given the explosion of targeted drug development in brain tumor patients. In many, if not in most instances our treatment decisions are based on the actual genomic profile or biomarkers present in each patient's tumors in collaboration with our colleagues at the john Wayne cancer Institute, we can perform detailed genomic analysis of all brain tumors that have been surgically removed. We incorporate new technologies based on blood and cerebral spinal fluid, including circulating tumor cells and genomic and proteomics analyses. In addition, we can facilitate sending samples to other institutions and commercial companies for whole genome sequencing and tumor marker analysis results of genomic analyses, along with novel clinical trial protocols allow us to customize treatment options for each patient. This is the goal of our precision medicine program. Given that brain cancers are currently not curable, we're constantly striving to extend our patient survival and quality of life with newer and safer therapies. We often see patients who have had treatments at other centers and have had progression or recurrence of their tumors. Were happy to consult with specialists and other treatment centers and work collaboratively to achieve the ideal treatment approach for each patient. By combining the multidisciplinary expertise and experience of neuro oncology, neurosurgery and radiation oncology for all of our patients. We've truly raised the level of care for all brain tumor patients.
