Empower Your Fight Against Glioblastoma
Glioblastoma is an aggressive disease that requires an incredibly proactive response. Learn about its biology and how cryogenically banking your living brain tumor tissue unlocks vital functional testing and future immune-oncology options.
Talk to a Care SpecialistWhat is Glioblastoma?
Glioblastoma (GBM) is a rare, hyper-aggressive type of cancer that can occur in the brain or spinal cord. It forms from astrocytes—the star-shaped cells that support the health of the nerve cells within the brain.
GBM is known for being remarkably difficult to treat because its tumors are comprised of highly heterogeneous cells (meaning the cells inside the tumor look and behave wildly differently from one another), allowing them to rapidly adapt to and resist standard treatments.
What Does Glioblastoma Do?
Because it operates directly within the brain, glioblastoma deeply impacts neurological function and spreads rapidly into healthy brain tissue.
- Neurological Decline: The growing tumor puts immense pressure on the brain, causing persistent headaches, seizures, and progressive loss of memory or speech.
- Tentacle-like Growth: Unlike rounded tumors with distinct edges, GBM cells possess tiny, thread-like tendrils that extend into normal, vital brain tissue, making complete surgical removal physically impossible.
- Rapid Progression: GBM has an extremely fast growth rate, demanding immediate, multi-faceted therapeutic responses.
Current Treatment Options
Maximal Safe Resection
A neurosurgeon will attempt to remove as much of the tumor as possible without damaging surrounding healthy tissue governing speech, vision, or movement.
Radiation Therapy
Usually commenced shortly after surgery, targeted radiation aims to kill the microscopic tendrils of cancer cells the surgeon was forced to leave behind.
Oral Chemotherapy
Medications like Temozolomide are administered alongside and after radiation to prevent the rapidly reproducing cells from repairing their damaged DNA.
Why Bank Your Living Glioblastoma Tissue?
Standard care for GBM has scarcely changed in decades, and the disease is notoriously resistant. Your tumor's living tissue is required to craft personalized vaccines, run novel immunotherapies, and map its unique resistance mechanisms. If your hospital discards it post-surgery, these doors close.
Vaccine Readiness
Some of the most promising avenues in GBM treatment are personalized dendritic cell vaccines. These vaccines must be reverse-engineered using your body's live tumor tissue.
Blood-Brain Barrier Testing
Banked living tissue enables sophisticated screening to discover which targeted systemic drugs can actually successfully penetrate the blood-brain barrier to kill your specific tumor.
Clinical Trial Entry
Due to its severity, there are hundreds of active GBM clinical trials. Retaining a live biological profile accelerates matching you to trials investigating complex virotherapies and immunotherapies.
Combatting Resistance
GBM frequently recurs. Having the initial live biology mapped allows doctors to compare molecular data against recurring growth to plot smarter secondary interventions.