At a press conference during the ASCO 2012 Annual Meeting in Chicago, June 1st - June 4th, Dr Martin Van Den Bent presented findings from a phase III study showing that combination chemotherapy after standard radiation therapy delayed tumour growth and extended the lives of patients with anaplastic oligodendroglial tumours, a form of brain cancer.

A sub-analysis of the study showed the survival benefit of combination chemotherapy-radiation treatment may be limited to patients whose tumours contained specific deletions of genetic material in chromosomes 1 and 19.