Publications
Global, regional, and national burden of brain and other CNS cancer, 1990-2016 University of Antwerp
Brain mapping of patients with lung cancer and controls: inquiry into tumor-to-brain communication. Vrije Universiteit Brussel
METHODS: Eighteen patients with lung malignancy and 19 controls underwent (18)F-FDG PET of the brain. Brain metabolism ...
Correlation of EGFR, IDH1 and PTEN status with the outcome of patients with recurrent glioblastoma treated in a phase II clinical trial with the EGFR-blocking monoclonal antibody cetuximab Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Mutation and gene amplification of the epithelial growth factor receptor (EGFR) is one of the most common genetic alterations in glioblastoma (GB). EGFR is, therefore, an attractive molecular target for the treatment of GB. EGFR-targeted therapies however have been largely ineffective in clinical trials. In this study, we investigated the correlation between the EGFR gene amplification status, expression of the EGFR variant III (EGFRvIII) and ...
Neurosurgical treatment strategies in childhood craniopharyngiomas Vrije Universiteit Brussel
OBJECTIVE: Craniopharyngiomas in children are typically present in combination with heterogeneous clinical and neuroradiological findings. It has remained highly challenging to choose the optimal treatment strategy with regard to local tumor control and clinical outcome. Here, we analyze different treatment methods and evaluate the results.
METHODS: We performed a detailed retrospective evaluation of 32 children <18 years old treated ...
Open-label, multicentre safety study of vemurafenib in 3219 patients with BRAFmutation-positive metastatic melanoma Vrije Universiteit Brussel
BACKGROUND: The orally available BRAF kinase inhibitor vemurafenib is an effective and tolerable treatment option for patients with metastatic melanoma harbouring BRAFV600mutations. We assessed the safety of vemurafenib in a large population of patients with few alternative treatment options; we report updated 2-year safety.
METHODS: This was an open-label, multicentre study of vemurafenib (960 mg bid) in patients with previously ...
Atypical cerebral language dominance in a right-handed patient Vrije Universiteit Brussel University of Antwerp
OBJECTIVE: Approximately 97% of the right-handers has left hemisphere language dominance. Within the language dominant hemisphere Broca's area is of crucial importance for a variety of linguistic functions. As a result, tumour resection in and around Broca's area is controversial. However, studies showed that by means of Direct Electrical Stimulation (DES) tumour resection in this region can be safely performed. We report unexpected ...
Axitinib plus avelumab in the treatment of recurrent glioblastoma: a stratified, open-label, single-center phase 2 clinical trial (GliAvAx) Vrije Universiteit Brussel
BACKGROUND: No treatment demonstrated to improve survival in patients with recurrent glioblastoma (rGB) in a randomized trial. Combining axitinib with the programmed cell death ligand 1 blocking monoclonal antibody avelumab may result in synergistic activity against rGB.
METHODS: Adult patients with rGB following prior surgery, radiation therapy and temozolomide chemotherapy were stratified according to their baseline use of ...
Comprehensive Mutation Analysis of PMS2 in a Large Cohort of Probands Suspected of Lynch Syndrome or Constitutional Mismatch Repair Deficiency Syndrome Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Monoallelic PMS2 germline mutations cause 5%-15% of Lynch syndrome, a midlife cancer predisposition, whereas biallelic PMS2 mutations cause approximately 60% of constitutional mismatch repair deficiency (CMMRD), a rare childhood cancer syndrome. Recently improved DNA- and RNA-based strategies are applied to overcome problematic PMS2 mutation analysis due to the presence of pseudogenes and frequent gene conversion events. Here, we determined ...
Epilepsy surgery for glioneuronal tumors in childhood Vrije Universiteit Brussel
BACKGROUND: In contrast to the abundance of seizure outcome reports in epilepsy surgery for glioneuronal tumors in childhood and adolescence, there is a dearth of information regarding cognitive outcomes.
OBJECTIVE: To investigate the seizure and cognitive outcome of children and adolescents that underwent resective surgery for glioneuronal tumor-associated refractory epilepsy and determine their predictive factors.
METHODS: We ...