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CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (Ivanhoe Newswire) – Glioblastoma is the most common and aggressive form of brain tumor. More than 14,000 people will be diagnosed with one this year and once diagnosed, most people will not live more than two years. But despite their aggressive nature, treatments have basically remained the same since 2005. Now, researchers are looking at ways to make a person’s own body attack the tumor.

Fran Noonan’s fingers going numb were one of the first signs something was wrong with. Not long after, she was diagnosed with a glioblastoma.

“They gave me anywhere from six months to 14 months to live,” she said.

The standard of care for these types of brain tumors hasn’t changed in almost 20 years—odds of long-term survival are slim.

“It’s about a hundred percent recurrence rate and it usually occurs around the nine-month mark,” explained Dr. Dominique Higgins, a neurosurgical oncologist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, N.C..

Now, a team of researchers is hoping to turn the patient’s own immune system against the tumors.

“It’s an interesting approach to, essentially, a personalized tumor vaccine,” added Dr. Higgins.

Patients undergo brain surgery to remove as much of the tumor as possible. Then, scientists take tumor cells, kill them, and put them in special chambers that contain nucleotides that help to turn on an immune response. Doctors then insert the dime-sized chambers just under the skin in the abdomen.

“And so, they’re basically like little traps for the irradiated tumor cells that are stimulating an immune response,” said Dr. Higgins.

Two days later, the chambers are removed.

“But now, the immune cells in the body know what a tumor looks like and they can go on and attack it in the brain,” said Dr. Higgins

The phase two clinical trial is still enrolling patients with newly diagnosed glioblastomas. Researchers hope that this technique will not only be used to battle glioblastomas, but other cancers, in particular, ovarian cancer.

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