Immunotherapy Treatment in Germany

Brooke Hepburn-Rogers is organizing this fundraiser.

Donation protected

Update: Mum and I went to Germany for the treatment, we are now back and crossing our fingers that this is the miracle (or whatever you call it) we are hoping for, we have raised $18k and WOW, we are so thankful to everyone.....

We are still hoping to get the treatment covered, which is another $32k. It seems like an unachievable goal but we will keep this open for now to see if we can get there.

Thank you again to everyone that has shared and/or donated. We can't thank you enough.

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We need your help to get treatment, not available in Australia, and could be a miracle.

Last October I was diagnosed with Stage IV Gliosarcoma (A form of Glioblastoma GBM), incurable, brain cancer....Gliosarcoma (GS) is a rare histopathologic variant of GBM.

I have had a frontal left craniotomy, currently 7 weeks of radiation and am about to commence my 10th week of chemo (which I will have to do every 28 days for the rest of my life).

I am 41 years old, a business owner, a volunteer bush firefighter… Why would this happen to me?

We have learnt about Immunotherapy treatment in Germany (as it is not offered in Australia), and this could increase my lifespan from months to years. You can understand how desperate we are for this…..But of course, it comes at a cost, a large cost and we just got approved to fly there on the 9th of April......We are asking for help.

Additional Information

One of the peculiarities of human immunity is the ability to distinguish healthy cells from malignant ones to attack and destroy the latter. In brain tumours, this is especially important because surgeons cannot remove a large amount of brain tissue, and radiation therapy and chemotherapy are often not effective enough. Immunotherapy treatment for glioblastoma increases patients' life expectancy and prolongs the relapse-free period after radical surgery in the early stages of cancer. In Germany, doctors actively use immunotherapy at different stages of glioblastoma and achieve high success rates in the treatment of this type of cancer.

(Source: https://bookinghealth.com/blog/diagnoses-and-treatment/diagnosis-and-treatment/697703-glioblastoma-immunotherapy-treatment-in-germany.html)

The activity of the immune system in the brain is limited because the brain is separated from the rest of the body by the blood-brain barrier (BBB). This means that immune cells and immunologically active substances cannot freely penetrate from the blood vessels into the brain tissue. The initial task of the BBB is to protect the brain from viruses, bacteria and toxic substances. Still, an undesirable side effect is the protection of a malignant tumour located inside the skull from anti-cancer immunity. Targeted therapy with monoclonal antibodies is one of the options for bypassing the protection of the BBB and introducing ready-made substances with high anticancer activity into the brain. Monoclonal antibodies are synthetic drugs that find unique for glioblastoma molecules in the body and destroy cells with such molecules. Other possible targets are receptors and membrane antigens, which are present in several tissues, but their number in glioblastoma cells is several hundred times higher. When conducting brain cancer immunotherapy, the targets for monoclonal antibodies are: Epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) Endothelial vascular growth factor (VEGF-A) Receptors for certain types of interleukins, such as IL-2R A special type of monoclonal antibodies is immune checkpoint inhibitors. These drugs target specific proteins and thereby make the tumour visible to the immune system. After the use of immune checkpoint inhibitors, glioblastoma loses its ability to go undetected by the immune system.

(Source: https://bookinghealth.com/blog/diagnoses-and-treatment/diagnosis-and-treatment/697703-glioblastoma-immunotherapy-treatment-in-germany.html)