Nearby healthy cells remain unaffected. By early 1998, Warnick's team hopes to have enough information to determine whether the gene-therapy approach is more effective than surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. Previous treatments were not really based on molecular medicine. There are cutting-edge molecular tools to fight cancer. It can grow from nothing to several centimeters in a matter of months.
Treatment usually involves surgery, chemotherapy drugs and radiation.
With treatment, one-year survival is less than 20 percent. Without treatment, patients usually die within three months. For reasons unknown, brain tumors are increasing among the elderly, and are up 25 percent since 1973. Glioblastomas have increased 50 percent during the same time. They most commonly strike people ages 40-60.