A better deal for brain tumour patients?

Kathy Oliver's comment in the May edition of this journal, ‘Brain tumour treatments: the view of patients and caregivers’ (Oliver, 2007), highlighted the recent campaign during which she and I worked together for NHS-funded access to promising new therapies for high-grade brain tumours. She wrote about living in an era of ‘high-tech’ medicine, where developments are moving faster, and told of being the mother of a brain tumour patient who has benefi ted from recent advances in neurosurgery. She referred to the advances in treatment that benefit patients, and the increasing technological sophistication of operating theatres equipped with such facilities as imageguided surgery, helping to enable maximal resection. Yet, she says, despite these advances, we still have no cure for this devastating and rare cancer.