Standard brain tumor treatments stopped working. Her doctors would not give in.

In 2022, Christine McGeorge was busy caring for her family in Jacksonville, N.C., and teaching nursing students at a community college when she developed a strange set of symptoms.

Sometimes she had trouble speaking and getting the words out. Her handwriting changed. Her right side grew weak; her right leg would go numb. At the grocery store, she would run into people’s carts because she couldn’t control her body.

After multiple tests, she learned she had a mass on the left side of her brain, ultimately diagnosed as a fast-growing glioblastoma, an aggressive cancerous brain tumor. She was just 40 years old.

Over the next two years, amid multiple treatments, McGeorge’s glioblastoma recurred four times. But her Novant Health neurosurgery and radiation oncology teams did not give up on her. They saw that she was an excellent candidate for an innovative, targeted therapy that would deliver precise radiation at the site of her brain tumor.

In June 2024, McGeorge became the first Novant Health patient to receive this advanced therapy, called GammaTile implant surgery. In what sounds like a plot from a science-fiction movie, neurosurgeons implanted tiles in McGeorge’s brain to release radiation and destroy the final remnants of her tumor. McGeorge’s successful surgery provides new hope for Novant Health patients with recurrent and newly diagnosed brain tumors.

A pioneering solution

When McGeorge first noticed her symptoms, she had been working out four or five times a week for two hours a day and initially seized on the idea that her electrolytes were too low. But one morning at the gym, she became so dizzy that she couldn’t ignore something was wrong. She drove to the hospital emergency room alone, without telling her husband, Chris, or their three teenagers, Adelie, Aubrey and Eli.

“It was upsetting but almost a relief to know what was going on,” she admitted about her diagnosis. She wasn’t afraid of hospitals. They were a second home to her. She just wanted to get started on treatment.

That was the beginning of her relationship with Dr. Jeffrey Beecher, a cerebrovascular neurosurgeon at Novant Health New Hanover Regional Medical Center in Wilmington. When the standard cancer-fighting regimens were no longer an option for McGeorge, it was Beecher and Dr. Tiffany Morgan, a radiation oncologist with Novant Health Cancer Institute Radiation Oncology - Wilmington, who found a way forward.

Following her diagnosis, McGeorge received the standard course of oral chemotherapy medication and external beam radiation. The radiation wasn’t too bad – afterward, she would go on bike rides with Chris. She went back to work for a time.

When the tumor grew, McGeorge had craniotomy surgery to remove it. “We got through our first surgery very nicely and then unfortunately, we had a recurrence,” Beecher said. He followed up with another surgery in September 2023, but by May 2024, McGeorge had a new tumor.

By that point, she could no longer receive external radiation treatments because of the risk of radiation necrosis, a side effect in which the brain tissue is permanently damaged. Beecher, Morgan and colleagues concluded that McGeorge met the criteria to be the first patient at Novant Health to receive a GammaTile implant. “I felt it was absolutely the right thing to do,” Beecher said. “It’s what I would have wanted for me, and that’s often a great way to know if it’s the right thing to do.”

What is GammaTile and how does it work?

GammaTiles are a form of brachytherapy, or procedures that use internal radiation for cancer and other illnesses. Beecher and the surgical team would surgically remove the tumor, then place GammaTiles in the cavity where the tumor had been.

Each tile, about the size of a postage stamp, includes “seeds” that release a precise dose of radiation over time to eradicate any remaining tumor cells without harming the surrounding healthy brain tissue. Morgan calculated the exact dosage.

Promising for the future

McGeorge received the surgery in June 2024 and has been benefitting from radiation through the tiles since then. A key advantage is fewer side effects compared to external beam radiation. GammaTile patients are less likely to experience hair loss and brain fog. The tiles are “made of collagen, which naturally dissolves in the body after the tile is placed,” Morgan explained.

GammaTiles can be used for a wide variety of brain tumors. Along with malignant masses, they can be effective for benign tumors such as meningiomas, according to Morgan. The surgery was approved by the FDA in 2018 to treat recurrent brain tumors and in 2020 to treat newly diagnosed malignant tumors. Novant Health Cancer Institute Radiation Oncology - Wilmington added the treatment option following a lengthy evaluation and approval process.

“Right now, our protocol is mostly to use it for patients who have recurrences,” Beecher said. “There are open trials looking at using it for first-line surgeries and upfront at the time of diagnosis. We are looking into partnering and maybe being involved in that research.”

Throughout her ordeal, Christine has maintained her easygoing nature and optimism. “I feel good now that these GammaTiles are in here,” she said.