James Proctor
As a practicing attorney, James Proctor spent much of his career asking questions. So it should come as no surprise that when Proctor was diagnosed with glioblastoma brain cancer in 2024, his initial reaction was to ask questions.
His first query came from the understandable shock of receiving such news: “Is this the end?” Then Proctor regrouped and began looking for solutions: “Can the doctors fix this?” Then finally came resolve: “OK, let’s get after this thing. Let’s fight it. What are my options?”
The standard-of-care option involved surgery, which removed approximately 90 percent of the tumor, followed by six weeks of radiation and oral chemotherapy. But in addition, Proctor enrolled in a clinical trial called AGILE, sponsored by the Global Coalition for Adaptive Research. He did so after – of course – asking numerous questions about the trial, as well as other treatment possibilities.
“One of the difficult things was trying to decide which one of the various treatments to try,” Proctor says. “We just had to rely on the professionals to help us understand which direction we should navigate, and this is the one we chose.”
So for the past two years, Proctor has been receiving weekly intramuscular injections of ADI-PEG 20, an anti-cancer enzyme that works by starving tumor cells of the amino acids needed for survival and growth.
“The trial really hasn’t been that bad, except that I’m afraid of needles, and the one they stick me with is about five inches long,” Proctor says with a chuckle. “But I just had to get used to it. Now it doesn’t really bother me at all.”
Dealing with a needle is an acceptable tradeoff for the results Proctor has received. While glioblastoma currently is not curable, it can be managed, and there has been no growth of Proctor’s cancer since he started the trial.
“He’s tolerated the drug without much problem, and his recent MRIs have been looking good,” UAB neuro-oncologist L. Burt Nabors, M.D., says. “Day-to-day, from a clinical perspective, he’s doing well.”
While Nabors acknowledges that the drug will not eliminate Proctor’s cancer, he says that is not the goal of this trial. Instead, researchers are still in the stage of controlling glioblastoma as to both extend a patient’s life and maintain quality.
“Research through clinical trials has led to new therapies that have become much more effective,” Nabors says. “Granted, they don’t cure this. But they certainly are helping people live longer and better, improving quality of life and maintaining neurological function.
“Everyone wants the home-run cure, but maybe we just have to pick at it a little bit with slow improvements. The challenge with brain cancer is how it impacts your ability to do the day-to-day things you want to be doing. We’re trying to preserve that and promote the healing from the collateral damage that sometimes occurs from treating the cancer.”
For now, that is enough for Proctor, who is able to travel and enjoy watching his granddaughter’s soccer games.
“Life always has some twists and turns we can’t control, but right now everything seems stable,” Proctor says. “We’re blessed with the fact we have a fabulous group of physicians who are doing a terrific job of taking care of my situation. As long as that’s the case, we’ll be in good spirits.”
No question about it.