New treatments are being explored for two devastating cancers—glioblastoma and ovarian cancer—and they are showing promise.
Glioblastoma is an aggressive form of brain cancer and the most common malignant brain tumor in adults, making up about half of all brain tumor cases, according to the Mayo Clinic. There is no cure, but treatments such as surgery, radiation and chemotherapy may slow tumor growth and help a patient live longer.
Ovarian cancer is difficult to detect in the early stages and difficult to treat once it has been diagnosed, and one rare type—clear cell carcinoma—is even more so, as it can be resistant to anticancer drugs. Now, two separate studies have yielded promising results for new treatment options for both subtypes of deadly cancer.
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Researchers at Washington University School of Medicine looked at the minimally invasive, safe laser treatment currently offered to patients with recurrent or inoperable brain tumors, which extends survival for months, and they believe they have found ways to enhance these benefits and extend survival.
Principal investigator Eric C. Leuthardt said in a statement to Medical Xpress that their goal is to extend the patients’ survival and increase their quality of life, and that their study has identified the potential factors “that lead to the best outcomes.”
It looked at 787 brain tumor patients involved in a five-year study after undergoing the laser procedure, which sees a surgeon drill a tiny hole in the skull and insert a robotically controlled laser probe. This is then steered through the brain to the tumor while avoiding healthy tissue and emitting heat inside the tumor that kills the surrounding tumor cells.
The new research found that how much of the tumor is destroyed by the laser is a factor in how long a patient survives. Patients with 91 percent or more of the tumor cleared survived 2.1 years from diagnosis—while surgery to remove the tumor gives a survival rate of about 1.5 years. However, experts have warned that this should not be interpreted as proof that laser therapy provides better survival than standard surgery.
They believe this could mean offering the laser treatment at the first instance, even for patients who may be candidates for surgery.
Traditional brain surgery also requires weeks of recovery and partial, if temporary, skull removal, but the laser procedure requires a tiny incision. It maintains a patient’s quality of life and requires only a short hospital stay.
Leuthardt said, “When patients are told they have months to live, having the option of a low-risk procedure that gets them back home to their families in just over a day is profoundly meaningful.”
Dr. Amar Rewari, the chief of radiation oncology at Luminis Health and an adjunct assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, told Newsweek the study reveals “important information about how and when we may be able to use [the laser treatment] most effectively.”
“For patients with tumors that are difficult to reach surgically, or for whom another open brain operation carries substantial risk, having a minimally invasive option is particularly attractive,” he added.
“With glioblastoma, we unfortunately still do not have anything approaching a cure for most patients, so improvements in both survival and quality of life are meaningful,” Rewari said.
Meanwhile, researchers at Kindai University Faculty of Medicine in Osaka, Japan, have found that a subset of clear cell ovarian cancers responds to immunotherapy. They have identified a key protein as a factor underlying the response.
The IL-17 protein acts on cancer cells and creates a tumor microenvironment by recruiting immune cells, but harnessing the mechanism may predict a positive result in patients.
Immunotherapy had previously shown promising results in treating types of cancer, but it had not yet shown a clear benefit in ovarian cancer, despite having good results in certain patients.
Now, the researchers have analyzed tissue samples and data from 180 clear cell ovarian cancers and found that 5 percent exhibited a subtype where IL-17 is highly active, which could serve as a new biomarker for diagnosis and treatment.
Researcher Dr. Noriomi Matsumura told Newsweek: “Our analysis of 180 human ovarian clear cell carcinomas identified a small subgroup—approximately 5 percent—with high IL17A expression and signs of active T-cell immunity within the tumor.
“In cultured cells and mouse models, IL-17 activated NF-κB-dependent inflammatory signaling in tumor cells, promoted T-cell recruitment and activation, and created conditions in which anti-PD-L1 immunotherapy prolonged survival.”
They learned that the protein triggers an inflammatory switch within the cells, causing them to activate immune cells, and animal testing found that when the activation of these immune cells were observed within tumors, immunotherapy had an enhanced result that prolonged survival.
It suggests that IL-17 acts as a trigger that transforms tumors into a state where the immune system can effectively attack cancer cells. This may help find patients with clear cell ovarian cancer who are likely to benefit from immunotherapy treatment.
Matsumura said their next priority is “to determine, in multicenter cohorts of patients treated with immune checkpoint inhibitors, whether this IL-17-associated tumor state can reliably identify patients who are likely to benefit, while further clarifying the underlying biological mechanisms.”
Rewari told Newsweek: “Neither study means that we suddenly have a cure for these very difficult cancers. But both potentially give us better tools to match the right treatment to the right patient, and that is one of the most important ways cancer care is advancing.”
Contact Newsweek editors on this story: Sirena Bergman and Shakeema Edwards.
Reference
Eric C. Leuthardt et al. Laser Interstitial Thermal Therapy for Brain Tumors: A Prospective Multicenter Analysis of Patients From the LAANTERN Study. J Clin Oncol (2026), JCO-25-02604 DOI:10.1200/JCO-25-02604
Kosuke Murakami et al., IL-17–driven tumor cell–intrinsic inflammatory programming creates an immunotherapy-permissive microenvironment, Molecular Cancer (2026). DOI: 10.1186/s12943-026-02726-2