Offensive Thinking

Brain tumors suck. Hi, I'm Patrick btw. This is my cancer blog. My "normal" stuff is over here.

Tumor Information Update: Molecular Genetics

Yep, that's me from the side, with a nice hole in my brain
Yep, that's me from the side, with a nice hole in my brain

As promised, I have updated my tumor information with its molecular genetics. I already mentioned that the definition as a mixed glioma is a thing of the past (see e.g. this great summary by Liz, so my oligoastrocytoma became an oligodendroglioma by definition.

I also finally got around to extracting some pretty pictures from some past MRIs. This is what my brain currently looks like:

Tumor on 14 February 2011
Tumor on 14 February 2011
Tumor on 19 May 2015
Tumor on 19 May 2015

On the left, you see the tumor on the day I was diagnosed, February 14th, 2011. The picture on the right is from May 19th, 2015, which is the latest I have on DVD. It was taken before I started radiation. Both pictures are from a FLAIR sequence. The bright white parts show roughly where the tumor or its remnants are (this is a little bit oversimplified, as a bright area not necessarily means tumor activity). I don’t think the difference in brightness says anything about the tumor activity at that point, it is more a difference in MRI devices, contrast agents and the exact timing of the when the picture was taken. I also wasn’t able to do an exact comparison, as one MRI was done in Aachen and the other in Heidelberg. By the way, if you’re technically inclined and use Linux: opening DICOM files works great with Ginkgo CADx, converting between formats can be done with XMedCon (please search for it yourself, as it is still hosted on Sourceforge and I don’t want to link to SF from my blog…).

Anyway, in my newer MRI where I don’t have the pictures at home right now, the bright parts have become less bright thanks to the radiation therapy. I’ll update this post if I get newer pictures.

I’m going to write some in-depth blog posts about those three distinctive genetic structures my tumor has:

  • IDH1 R132H Mutation
  • Hypermethylated MGMT Promoter
  • 1p/19q Deletion

Fortunately for me, all of them promise a good overall survival prognosis. I will link to the articles in this post as soon as they are written and published, so this post will be the “main overview” about my tumor’s inner workings.