• Fewer than 1% of all glioblastoma sufferers live for more than ten years, with just 5% managing more than five and 25% survive a single year – in fact the average survival time is just 12-18 months – Paula managed just under 7 months (208 days) from diagnosis to death
• It's frequently a miserable, undignified death, involving loss of critical faculties and bodily functions; sometimes, tragically even preventing communication with loved ones when the illness first manifasts itself in the form of a seizure or a stroke
• Because a glioblastoma is diffuse, it readily infiltrates surrounding brain tissue – this makes it hard for the neurosurgeon to remove tumour tissue without also damaging important 'eloquent' areas of the brain – early diagnosis is critical, but rarely happens: Paula's tumour was given a five-week head-start due to a diagnostic failure in the ER when she had her first big seizure, and this undoubtedly played a part in her extremely short survival
• If, like Paula, you have an IDH 'wild' type glioblastoma, and you are unlucky enough that your MGMT is 'unmethylated', the Stupp chemo+radiotherapy protocol they put everyone on will literally do you more harm than good – so to help the body cope with the side-effects of that, really heavy oral steroid doses are prescribed; and those are pretty much guaranteed to result in further harm, sometimes, like in Paula's case, causing or hastening death
• The number of GBM deaths in the UK seems to be undercounted – in Paula's case, the steroids caused a pulmonary embolism that developed into a fatal lung infection – her death is officially recorded as being primarily 'Community acquired pneumonia' – the illness and tumour that actually killed her only gets footnote status

So how can this improve?

The short answer is that it won't, unless money is found to pay for the research needed to reach the next breakthrough. View the research page to see where your donation can help the most.