The Fourth Annual BTTC Meeting was held on February 8, 2010. It took place at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas. This year’s meeting was attended by forty seven members and interested parties-our largest crowd to date. Members of participating institutions-physicians and coordinators were in attendance.

The status of the consortium was presented to the attendees. This included the progress on the active protocols, as well as the tools that are being used to enhance the collaboration and Research efforts of the group.

During this meeting, a myriad of new research concepts tackling brain tumors were presented by participating members.

Research Efforts

The BTTC08-01 trial is still underway. As of the first week of March 2010, we have registered twenty three subjects in the study. This study started in Dr. Raizer's site - Northwestern University, and now several of the member sites are either enrolling or expecting enrollment fairly soon.

The Temodar Combination Study was integrated into the collaborative after being solely managed by MD Anderson. As of the first week of March 2010, we have reached an enrollment of over 145 patients, thanks to the participation of BTTC sites.

During the Annual meeting, many new concepts for research were presented to the members, and they are on their way to becoming studies for member sites to adopt. Concepts to be considered for adoption by the BTTC includes: new compounds to be tested against brain tumors; new combination of chemotherapies; a new study that will include novel adaptive selection design using varied combinations of compounds.

The future of BTTC related research is beginning to look brighter. The more areas we study, the closer we come to finding a cure, and closer to bringing hope to all those affected by brain cancer.

Expanding the BTTC

We are now honored to be working with Dr. Patrick Wen, and to include him and his institution Dana Farber Cancer Institute (Harvard), in the BTTC.