Deep into the night, even in her sleep, Melanie Perone was haunted, fearing that the most aggressive and deadly of brain tumors might be growing back. Day after day, she would run down the stairs to her basement, to the computer, to search for a way to save her life.
A few years ago, when brain tumors were the poor cousin of cancer research, the Mount Airy woman's prospects would essentially have been no different than the dismal options of the 1960s.
But an explosion of findings in molecular biology has transformed the study and treatment of brain cancer.
Suddenly, this stubborn, lethal cancer that few wanted to study because it is so rare, so complicated and so hard to reach, is now attracting top researchers.
The number of clinical trials has multiplied. And patients like Perone can choose from scores of experimental therapies.
"I thought if I found the perfect trial, it would save my life," she said.
The first hint of her brain tumor came in late March, while she was waiting in line at the library. She felt a tingling on the lower right side of her mouth.
"It was enough for me to go, `Huh, what was that?' " she said.
Within a few weeks, she got her answer: a mass on her brain. But Perone, 36, an optimist with a big smile, wasn't worried. She felt confident her age would protect her, even after the operation on Good Friday when surgeons removed her walnut-sized tumor.
But then doctors told her the biopsy results. A nurse closed the door. Perone's husband, Jim, stood at her side. Two physicians looked at her from the foot of the bed. One of them used the word "malignant."
Perone screamed, not in fear, she said, but in grief. It was the wail of a woman who had just lost her baby. Doctors gave her six months to two years to live.
Unlike so many before her, though, she received the diagnosis at a pivotal period. For the first time in a generation, doctors can offer novel therapies, therapies that give Perone a chance to survive.
"We're kind of lucky now," said Perone, who finds herself reeling between despair and hope. "There's more magic bullets to look at. Maybe they'll find a cure tomorrow."
The turnaround in this largely neglected field started in 1994, when frustrated federal health officials decided to rethink their approach to brain tumors.
For years, researchers were mostly testing variations on radiation and chemotherapy by enrolling hundreds of patients in costly trials that often took years to complete. They also produced little new knowledge -- and saved few people.
