A Devastating Diagnosis
To be diagnosed with brain cancer is to be confronted with a new sense of urgency.
Immediately after diagnosis, people with glioblastoma face a combination of approaches – surgery, radiation and chemotherapy – to treat the disease aggressively.1 Even with swiftly executed plans of attack, the disease recurs in about 90 percent of patients.2
This devastating form of cancer, with a median life expectancy of 15 months from the time of diagnosis , inspired former president Barack Obama and former vice president Joe Biden to launch the Cancer Moonshot initiative following the death of Biden’s son, Beau, in 2015.
“Part of the moonshot is my view from my perspective … of Beau, and the life he lived of courage, and never giving up hope. This isn’t about him, this isn’t about a single person, it’s about us not giving up hope and having the urgency of now,” Biden says.
That urgency is palpable for those living with glioblastoma, their loved ones and physicians treating the disease. Glioblastoma is the most common type of malignant brain tumor, and an estimated 12,000 new cases are predicted in 2017.4