“We must turn the fatalism into hope”
First US fund finances research into brain tumours
Benedict Vanclooster
The James E. Kearney Memorial Fund for research into brain tumours is the first fund that is being financed by capital from the United States. Megan and Kathleen Kearney, James’ sisters, travelled to Leuven for the inauguration of the fund on 25 June.
Megan told us how the discovery of a brain tumour turned her brother’s life upside down seven years ago. “James used to run ten miles every morning before he went to work, as a banker on Wall Street. He was training for the New York marathon. During one of his training sessions, he suddenly lost his balance. Doctors at the emergency department discovered the cause: a malignant brain tumour. It was James’ 26th birthday.”
The young man lost his job, his apartment and his future. “He didn’t give up hope though”, Megan tells us. “He re-enrolled at Columbia University and spent twelve hours a day in the library reading medical articles about the causes and treatment of brain tumours. He visited research centres across the US and eventually came into contact with Professor Stefaan Van Gool in Leuven, via his oncologist in New York.”
Van Gool’s team currently treats patients from sixteen different countries, but James Kearney was his first American patient with a brain tumour. Van Gool: “James and his family always felt very welcome at our hospital, though ultimately, James’ story did not end happily. James placed infinite trust in immunotherapy, despite the fact that it was still a very recent method of treatment.”
James shared the vision that where a number of tumours are concerned, including some brain tumours, classical oncological therapies fall short. “We will never be able to do without surgery, radio and chemotherapy, but they are insufficient”, Van Gool tells us. He is exploring an additional method of treatment: immunotherapy. “We have sufficient evidence to indicate that the body can actually combat some brain tumours with its immune system. Using this method, we have kept some relapsed patients alive for over five years and counting.”
Van Gool’s challenge is to provide convincing evidence that immunotherapy has additional value. “Our method is unique in Europe, but it is reassuring that our work is currently being reproduced by research centres in Japan and America. We have reached the point where we should be organising large-scale randomised studies to compare, for example, one hundred patients who receive our treatment with one hundred patients who don’t.”
The scientific development is slow, but thanks to the James E. Kearney Memorial Fund, it will be able to shift into a higher gear. “Usually, our research always gets lost between two poles, with respect to financing”, Van Gool says. “Money either goes to basic science or to clinical applications. We work in the grey zone in between the two: experimental therapy. We have already advanced a great deal thanks to the financing from the Olivia Hendrickx Research Fund and the TBM-programme of the Flemish Government, but the new fund will enable us to take the next big step.”
The Kearney family intends to organise activities on a regular basis, to continually increase the fund’s resources. Despite the fact that malignant brain tumours only affect three or four out of 100,000 adults per year, their social impact is enormous. “The number of years a patient loses as a result of a brain tumour, relative to the average life expectancy, is higher than in cases of any other cancer”, Van Gool informs us.
“Consider also that research financing for brain tumours is lower than for any other tumours. From this perspective, it seems as though the battle against brain tumours has been lost before it has even begun. The fund will help to turn this fatalism into hope and to really commit to the problem with James’ conviction and determination.” Or to put it in James’ own words, on the last card he sent for Mother’s Day: “Remember, beauty is in the struggle, not in the outcome.”
For more information
Send an e-mail to
Stefaan.VanGool@med.kuleuven.be or
Isabel.Penne@rec.kuleuven.be
