Category: glioblastomas
The targeted therapy Avastin, alone and in combination with the chemotherapy drug CPT-11, significantly increased response rates, progression-free survival times and survival rates in patients with a deadly form of brain cancer that had recurred.
BOSTON (August 10, 2009) -- In a study published online in advance of print in Stem Cells, Tufts researchers report that the STAT3 gene regulates cancer stem cells in brain cancer. Cancer stem cells have many characteristics of stem cells and are thought to be the cells that drive tumor formation.
CHICAGO -- The brain tumor afflicting Sen. Edward Kennedy -- a glioblastoma -- is the most aggressive and wily form of brain cancer. It has foiled researchers' decades-long efforts to thwart its explosive growth in the brain. The lethal tumor ? the most common brain tumor in humans -- nimbly alters its genes like a quick-change artist to elude treatments to destroy it.
An international team of scientists from the Moores Cancer Center at the University of California, San Diego, the University of North Carolina and several institutions in China have explained how a gene alteration can lead to the development of a type of brain cancer, and they have identified a compound that could staunch the cancer's growth.
DURHAM, N.C. - Duke University researchers have identified a receptor on the surface of cells that may give them another avenue of attack against glioblastoma, the most common and most deadly type of brain cancer.
The beneficial effects of anti-angiogenesis drugs in the treatment of the deadly brain tumors called glioblastomas appear to result primarily from reduction of edema - the swelling of brain tissue - and not from any direct anti-tumor effect, according to a study from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers.
AUSTIN, Texas - Hospice and palliative medicine investigators presented preliminary research findings at paper sessions held during the Annual Assembly of the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine, in collaboration with the Hospice and Palliative Nurses Association, on March 25- 28, 2009, at the Austin Convention Center in Austin, Texas.
A protein developed by scientists at Oregon Health & Science University blocks the growth of glioblastoma, an aggressive and deadly brain tumor, in laboratory rats, a new study shows. Herstatin inhibits the activation of a family of enzymes responsible for signaling inside tumor cells that tells the cells to proliferate and display other malignant properties, said Gail Clinton, Ph.D., professor of biochemistry and molecular biology in the OHSU School of Medicine who co-authored the study appearing this month in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
Hotspots in two areas of a gene that encodes a specific signaling enzyme, or kinase, are vulnerable to a variety of mutations found in five types of brain cancers, according to a report published in the August 1 issue of the journal Cancer Research. Mutations in the gene PIK3CA occur spontaneously as part of the brain tumor development rather than being passed genetically between generations, said Hai Yan, M.D., Ph.D., the senior scientist of the studies. ''PIK3CA mutations are known to occur in as much as 30 percent of colorectal and gastric cancers and glioblastomas and they are also present, to a lesser extent, in breast and lung cancer,'' Yan noted. ''Our studies defined the association of mutant PIK3CA gene in a wider spectrum of adult and pediatric brain tumors as well.''
