spoiler
“Promising is a difficult word… Encouraging, I would call it,” he tells the BBC from Chicago.
“It’s not a revolution, but it is still a step forward.”
He wants to see Prof Scolyer reach 12 months, even 18, without recurrence before he’ll be persuaded.
But Dr Stupp says he is “absolutely” confident that immunotherapy can change the treatment of brain cancer - the science just hasn’t been cracked yet.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Over the past decade, their team’s research on immunotherapy, which uses the body’s immune system to attack cancer cells, has dramatically improved outcomes for advanced melanoma patients around the world.
They bonded over frustration at the cases they couldn’t crack, the highs of life-changing discoveries, a love of exercise, and a lofty ambition of reaching zero melanoma deaths in Australia.
Eyes shining, the medical oncologist rattles off a list of qualities - brave, honest, upbeat, driven - which make Prof Scolyer the dream colleague and friend.
And so, after she received that fateful call from Poland last June - where Prof Scolyer was on holiday when a seizure triggered his diagnosis - she spent the night crying.
Glioblastomas, found in the brain’s connective tissue, are notoriously aggressive and the general protocol for treating them - immediate excision then radiotherapy and chemotherapy - has changed little in two decades.
But sitting in his office - surrounded by pictures of his children, tasks scribbled on a whiteboard and shelves filled with framed accolades - Prof Scolyer tears up.
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