08/03/2026
Many brain tumors are survivable. Then, there’s glioblastoma. The aggressive, fast-growing brain cancer seems to strike randomly, devastating people of all ages and their families.
It’s difficult to treat, with most patients facing a life expectancy of less than two years after diagnosis.
Uche Ojeh, the husband of TODAY co-host Sheinelle Jones, was just 45 when he died of glioblastoma in 2025.
Singer Michael Bolton revealed his diagnosis the same year.
Jill Smokler, creator of the website “Scary Mommy,” passed away from the brain cancer in June at 48.
That same month, Andy Cohen cried as he remembered his former “Watch What Happens Live” production manager Kyra Samson, who died of glioblastoma at 28.
“The cancer strikes at a person’s very essence,” says Dr. Annick Desjardins a neuro-oncologist at the Duke Cancer Center Brain Tumor Clinic in Durham, North Carolina, who treats patients with glioblastoma.
“The brain is your computer. It’s what makes you you,” says Dr. Desjardins.
“Glioblastoma takes exactly who you are; it takes your autonomy.”
“The disease can affect anyone, at any age, and the trigger is a mystery — most of the time, it’s just bad luck, she adds. Cells grow out of control, forming tentacles and invading deeply into nearby brain tissue. While some brain tumors grow slowly over years, glioblastoma gets bigger very rapidly, doubling every couple of weeks,” Dr. Desjardins says.
Depending on where the tumor is located in the brain, it can impact a person’s personality, ability to speak, understand speech, reading, writing, mobility and vision.
Glioblastoma Symptoms: Morning Headaches ~ The brain takes up almost all the space inside the head, so a fast-growing tumor will create too much pressure in the skull, leading to severe headaches that usually show up in the morning. “When you’re lying down, the fluid in your body redistributes equally throughout the body, which means that the pressure in the brain will increase — versus when you have been standing all day long, most of the fluid goes into your legs,” Dr. Desjardins explains. “So one of the early signs of a brain tumor is worsening early morning headaches, even before you get up.” The headaches can wake people up in the middle of the night and don’t respond to pain relievers. This is the most common glioblastoma symptom, Dr. Desjardins says. It often leads people to seek help from a physician or emergency room, prompting brain scans that uncover the tumor.
Nausea or Vomiting: This symptom is related to the increased pressure in the skull. “When the brain is too stressed, too under pressure, then you’ll have the severe headache with the nausea and the vomiting,” Dr. Desjardins notes.
Seizures: They’re usually much more subtle than the dramatic seizures portrayed on TV, the doctor notes. A seizure can be a short-lived abnormal neurologic sensation — such as a sudden inability to speak, tingling that starts in the hand and moves up the arm, weakness or seeing flashing lights — that lasts between 30 seconds to five minutes, resolves and then intensifies over time. The seizure might happen once every week at first, and then suddenly multiple times a day. “Anything out of the usual, so a numbness, a clumsiness, a difficulty in speech that doesn’t get better with rest that you feel that from day to day, over a week or two weeks continues to get worse,” Dr. Desjardins says. “By the time you have the big shaking seizure that you see on TV, the tumor is already quite large.”
Personality Changes: A tumor in the frontal lobe, located just behind the forehead, can impact how a person behaves. This part of the brain “participates most in making us human,” researchers note. It’s a person’s personality, their drive to do things and ability to interact with others, Dr. Desjardins says, so glioblastoma can lead to profound changes. “Often, patients are seen as looking like they’re depressed, or if they have dementia or if they’re not interested in their family or friends,” she notes. “They’re more withdrawn and they forget things.”
How Is Glioblastoma Diagnosed? “When a patient seeks help for a new neurologic symptom that’s rapidly worsening, doctors will order brain imaging — a head CT scan and a brain MRI,” Dr. Desjardins says. Those tests will show the presence of a tumor, but the final confirmation of whether it’s glioblastoma requires a brain biopsy done during brain surgery.
Glioblastoma Treatment: Patients undergo surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy with a drug called temozolomide. Optune, a wearable medical device, offers a survival advantage. But glioblastoma is one of the most challenging cancers to treat, the National Cancer Institute notes.
“It’s impossible to remove all of it with surgery since it invades vital parts of the brain and grows extremely fast. The blood-brain barrier, which protects the brain from infections, works against us in this case because most of the chemotherapy can’t reach the brain,” Dr. Desjardins says.
Glioblastoma is also very heterogeneous, meaning each cell is different than the others, so it’s hard to get a treatment that will kill all the cells, she adds. Newer medications may not improve survival, but they can improve a patient’s quality of life.
Has Anybody Survived Glioblastoma? Yes, 5-10% of patients become long-term survivors, Dr. Desjardins says, living a decade or longer after diagnosis. They may represent a “distinct subtype of glioblastoma,” a study found.
How To Get Help? Dr. Desjardins urges people diagnosed with glioblastoma to get a second opinion and reach out to brain cancer centers, even if it’s outside their hospital or their state, and to consider taking part in clinical trials testing new treatments. Researchers are learning how to develop immunotherapy — using a person’s own immune system to fight cancer — specific for glioblastoma. “What I tell my patients is each one of them is a trailblazer. Each one of them is helping the next patient and the next family do even better — slowly. I would like faster, for sure,” she says. “It’s like little building blocks. Someday we will find a cure.”
CyberKnife Treatment for Glioblastoma Tumors: CyberKnife is primarily used for recurrent glioblastoma (GBM) or for small, specific tumors where traditional radiation isn’t suitable. It delivers highly targeted, non-invasive Stereotactic Radiosurgery (SRS) to shrink tumors while protecting surrounding healthy brain tissue.
How it Works? Unlike traditional radiation, CyberKnife mounts a miniaturized linear accelerator on a robotic arm that moves freely around the patient.
Precision: It uses advanced imaging and AI technology to continuously track the tumor, adjusting the radiation beams for tiny movements in real time, greatly reducing the risk of side effects.
Duration: Treatments are usually completed in 1 to 5 outpatient sessions, drastically reducing the total number of visits compared to standard radiation.
CyberKnife’s Role in Glioblastoma Treatment: Glioblastoma is an aggressive cancer, and while CyberKnife is not a cure, it offers several benefits for specific patient scenarios:
Recurrent GBM: It is frequently used for localized re-irradiation in patients whose tumors have returned after initial surgery and standard treatments.
Side Effect Reduction: Because of its sub-millimeter precision, it limits radiation damage to critical, sensitive brain tissue, potentially reducing cognitive side effects (like memory and focus issues).
No Invasive Frames: Unlike older stereotactic systems, it does not require a painful, surgically-bolted head frame like with Gamma Knife.
Considerations and Limitations?
Primary Treatment: CyberKnife is rarely the first treatment for newly diagnosed GBM. Standard first-line care typically requires maximum safe surgical resection followed by the Stupp protocol (concurrent radiation and chemotherapy with temozolomide).
Tumor Size: Stereotactic Radio Surgery is best suited for smaller tumors. Diffuse, widely spreading GBMs may not be candidates for CyberKnife, which requires a clearly defined target.
Toxicity: While healthy tissue is spared, high-dose radiation can still carry risks, including localized swelling or radiation necrosis (death of brain tissue).
To determine if CyberKnife for brain tumor treatment is the right approach for your specific case, patients should consult with a radiation oncologist or neurosurgeon. You can also consult with the team at the CyberKnife Center of Miami to determine if CyberKnife treatments can help you. This is among the most experienced CyberKnife team of radiation oncologists worldwide. Call 305-279-2900 for a consultation.
The success rate of CyberKnife for brain tumors—defined as local tumor control (tumor stops growing or shrinks)—typically ranges from 85% to 95%, depending on the type and stage of the tumor. The treatment is primarily used to stabilize or eradicate benign tumors, metastases (cancer that spread to the brain from elsewhere), and certain primary cancers.
Specific success rates and outcomes vary depending on the condition being treated:
1. Brain Metastases
For tumors that have spread to the brain from other parts of the body, clinical studies report that over 85% to 90% of patients achieve local tumor control. About 90% of patients experience stabilized or significantly improved neurological symptoms.
2. Benign Tumors (Meningiomas and Acoustic Neuromas)
For slow-growing, non-cancerous tumors like meningiomas, CyberKnife is highly effective, with approximately 95% of tumors stopping growth after treatment. Long-term studies for acoustic neuromas show a local control rate of nearly 89% even at 25 years post-treatment.
3. Primary Brain Tumors and Gliomas
For primary brain tumors, the goal is often long-term control rather than a complete cure. For instance, studies on adult brainstem gliomas show 1-year and 2-year overall survival rates of 87.5% and 52.4%, respectively, with relatively mild side effects.
Important Considerations:
“Success” vs. “Cure”: In the context of CyberKnife (a form of stereotactic radiosurgery), success generally means stopping the tumor from growing or reducing its size, thereby relieving symptoms and extending life without the need for invasive open brain surgery.
Patient-Specific Factors: Overall survival and efficacy depend heavily on the patient’s age, overall health, the size of the tumor, and whether the cancer has spread elsewhere in the body.
FYI: Data From the National Library of Medicine ~ Conclusion: Re-irradiation of recurrent malignant gliomas with the CyberKnife System provides encouraging survival rates. There is a better survival trend for WHO grade III gliomas and for patients who undergo combined treatment with CyberKnife plus chemotherapy. Rates of complications are low.
Cyberknife Center of Miami - The Beam Of Life
Glioblastoma Treatment With CyberKnife can at the very least extend life and should be considered as a treatment option
