Читать книгу The SAGE Encyclopedia of Stem Cell Research - Группа авторов - Страница 204

Studies are ongoing to find a new, efficient approach to treat the more aggressive cancers that cannot be treated with surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.

Scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta have developed a new drug that has only been tested on rats. In this new approach, the cancer drugs do not act on the brain tissue directly; instead, the tumor cells are guided in an artificial track to the chemotherapeutic agents. The advantage of this technique is that it spares the healthy brain tissue from the adverse effects of cancer drugs. Tumors can spread throughout the brain to areas that a surgeon is hesitant to operate on. This is where the new technique could be useful. An artificial track takes the cells to a “tumor collector” gel located outside of the brain containing an anticancer drug. The scientists have used this approach in rats. Those who were treated were found to have a 90% size reduction in the tumor after 18 days as compared to those who were not treated.

Another study proposes the use of immunotherapy for the treatment of brain cancer. Autologous dendritic cells loaded with apoptotic bodies with a high expression of multiple tumor and tumor-associated antigens derived from an allogeneic glioma cell line were used (GBM6-AD). The cell line was incubated in physiological oxygen to enhance the immunogenicity. In vivo phenotypic markers and ex vivo cytokine responses were measured. Alloresponses to this cancer vaccine were followed over time in a population of stable patients. It was concluded that the analysis of these biomarkers could be important in foreseeing the effectiveness of future vaccines. This also provides important information for further brain tumor immunotherapy trials.

Sana Asad Chaudhary

Sarah Mahmood

National University of Sciences and Technology

Ifra Fahim Ata

Dow University of Health Sciences

See Also: Cancer Stem Cells: Overview; Clinical Trials, U.S.: Solid Tumors.