Man's deadly brain cancer tumor disappears after experimental drug trial
A man with the deadliest form of brain cancer has no signs of the disease after taking an experimental drug.
Ben Trotman was 40 when he was diagnosed in 2022 with glioblastoma, the most aggressive cancerous brain tumor. Patients typically live an average of 15 months after diagnosis, and the five-year survival rate is just 6.9%.
Trotman was referred to The National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery at University College London Hospitals (UCLH), where he was treated by consultant UCLH medical oncologist Dr. Paul Mulholland, as detailed in a press release.
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As the only person enrolled in a trial that ultimately closed due to lack of patients, Trotman received a medication called ipilimumab, a targeted immunotherapy treatment.
Ipilimumab is an antibody that binds to a protein on immune cells (T cells), keeping cancer cells from suppressing the immune system so it can then attack and kill the cancer, according to the National Cancer Institute.
Trotman also received radiation and chemotherapy. More than two years later, his quarterly scans show no signs of cancer.
"It is very unusual to have a clear scan with glioblastoma, especially when he didn’t have the follow-up surgery that had been planned to remove all of the tumor that was initially visible on scans," his oncologist, Mulholland, said in the release.
"We hope that the immunotherapy and follow-up treatment Ben has had will hold his tumor at bay — and it has so far, which we are delighted to see."
Two months after receiving the ipilimumab, Trotman married his wife, Emily. In April 2025, they welcomed their daughter, Mabel.
"Getting this diagnosis was the most traumatic experience — we were grappling with the fact that Ben had gone from being apparently perfectly healthy to having months to live," Emily Trotman said in the release.
"Had we not met Dr. Mulholland, that would have been it for us. We felt we had a lucky break in an otherwise devastating situation."
Ben Trotman added, "We obviously don’t know what the future holds, but having had the immunotherapy treatment and getting these encouraging scan results has given [us] a bit of hope."
"We are focused on rebuilding the life we thought we had lost and enjoying being parents."
Mulholland and his team have now opened another clinical trial for patients who have been newly diagnosed with glioblastoma.
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Sixteen patients will be recruited for the trial, which is sponsored by UCL. The treatment will be administered at the NIHR UCLH’s Clinical Research Facility and the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, according to the press release.
The patients will receive ipilimumab before proceeding to standard treatments that may include surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy.
"The crucial element of this trial is that patients will have their immune system boosted by the drug before they have any other treatment, when they are fit and well enough to tolerate the immunotherapy," Mulholland said in the release.
The Win-Glio trial — nicknamed "Margaret’s Trial" — is funded by the efforts of Dame Siobhain McDonagh, sister of Margaret McDonagh, a London woman who died of glioblastoma in 2023 and was treated by Mulholland.
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Ben said he is "delighted" that the new trial is moving forward with the same immunotherapy drug he received.
"It will give people newly diagnosed with glioblastoma some hope."