What Archie Goodburn’s Brain Tumour Diagnosis Reveals About Rising Brain Cancer Trends
6th August 2026
By Alasdair Philips and Professor Denis Henshaw, Scientific Advisors to EM Radiation Research Trust
We saw the devasting news that champion UK swimmer and European medallist, Archie Goodburn, has a rare form of brain tumour. Archie made an emotional broadcast video appeal to the Prime Minister for funding the development of better treatment for rare forms of brain tumours and other cancers. We wish him well and hope that the new drug, Vorasidenib, will prove a helpful treatment.
The news coverage prompted us to revisit UK brain tumour trends
We decided to look again at the UK Office for National Statistics (ONS) dataset that we used for our 2018 peer-reviewed paper on glioblastoma (GBM) tumours [1]. This time, we examined trends in the much rarer oligodendrogliomas. Archie Goodburn has been diagnosed with three oligodendrogliomas (ODG) tumours spreading through his brain.
ODG tumours are rare invasive brain tumours and are often difficult to remove surgically, although there is some evidence that a ketogenic diet might slow the growth of many cancers. ODG tumours are most commonly diagnosed between the ages of 25 and 50. Few are diagnosed before the age of 20 or after the age of 50. There are now only two Grades (CR-UK). Grade 2 ODG diffuse tumours are slow growing, having a median survival after diagnosis of around 10 to 20 years. Grade 3 (anaplastic) ODG tumours have a median survival of around 3 to 10 years. They are a form of glioma and generally develop in the temporal or frontal lobes of the brain.
When we published our 2018 paper, we concentrated on glioblastoma because it is both the most common and the most aggressive and fatal primary brain tumour, with survival typically measured in months rather than years. The paper generated considerable professional interest and we suggested that an environmental or lifestyle factor should be investigated to explain the rising incidence.
We revisited the dataset, now focusing on OGD tumours, particularly in people aged between 25 and 40, the age range highlighted in the recent news reports. The trends are similar across a wider age range of 20 to 50 years of age.
ODG tumours are rare, the numbers of cases are relatively low; the age standardised incidence rate (ASR) in 2015 was less than 0.7 per 100,000 people/year, compared with GBM tumours of about 6 per 100,000. We decided to graph the percentage change in incidence since 1995 up until 2015 (the limit of our detailed data). After 2018 cancer statistics were seriously affected by Covid and post-Covid and the ONS stopped being responsible for the cancer Registries. Cancer Research UK state that the ODG ASR is still below 1 in 100,000. The incidence of most aggressive ODG Grade 3 tumours rose steeply from around 1997 onwards resulting in a 4-fold increase over this time-period, whereas the incidence of Grade 2 increased much more slowly.
This is important because it suggests the increase cannot simply be explained by improved diagnosis. If advances in imaging or diagnosis were the main explanation, we would expect the lower-grade tumours, which are generally more difficult to detect, to have shown the greatest increase. Instead, it is the more aggressive Grade 3 tumours, which have always been easier to diagnose, that show the steepest rise. Whatever the cause, the increase begins around 1998 and, by 2015, there were approximately four times as many ODG Grade 3 diagnoses and twice as many ODG Grade 1 and 2 diagnoses compared with 1995.
This naturally raises the question: what changed between 1995 and 2015 that might have contributed to an increase in OGD brain cancer incidence? It almost certainly has to be due to some lifestyle or environmental factors.
Better treatments are certainly necessary – however they are usually also extremely expensive and usually have unwanted side-effects. It would be far better to track down the causal factors and prevent new brain tumours from developing in the first place. That would reduce the devasting impact that a brain tumour has on an individual and their family and friends.
Reference
Philips A., Henshaw D.L., Lamburn G., O’Carroll M.J. (2018). Rise in Glioblastoma Multiforme Incidence in England 1995–2015 Suggests an Adverse Environmental or Lifestyle Factor. Journal of Environmental and Public Health. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1155/2018/7910754
