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Posted on Mar 12, 2018, 12 a.m.
A therapeutic approach has been uncovered by researchers at Dartmouth’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center for a therapeutic approach to target aggressive brain cancer stem cells that could improve patient survival, as published in Oncogene.
Brain tumors account for about 25% of cancer related deaths in children and young adults. Most aggressive tumors will eventually recur and are ultimately incurable, despite response to treatment initially. Cancer stem cells within these tumors are suggested to resist therapy and be responsible for the recurrences. Researchers have developed a strategy to treat these aggressive tumors by identifying a secretion mediated pathway that is critical for maintaining glioma cancer stem cells.
Glioblastoma multiforme is an aggressive primary brain tumor with one of the worst survival rates of all cancers. Even after chemotherapy, surgery, and radiation these tumors typically become resistant to therapy and recur. Cancer stem cells are thought to be the drivers of resistance and recurrence. Presence of glioma stem cells within high grade gliomas makes these tumors hard to treat.
Studies are suggestive that these aggressive cancer stem cells resist therapy and give rise to recurrences. Ensuring these cells are being effectively targeted is an ongoing goal of cancer research. The team is using their understanding of the mechanisms of how these cells are maintained to develop new and potentially more effective methods at approaching treatment of high grade brain tumors. Utilizing drugs that target glioma stem cells may increase effectiveness of chemotherapy agents and prolong patients survival.
Blockage of the identified pathway pharmacologically appears to lead to noticeable reduction in tumor growth. Use of these pharmacological agents is suggested by studies to possibly increase survival. The ability to target cancer stems cell within these tumors could potentially improve response to chemotherapies preventing recurrences improving rates of survival.
This study will hopefully lead to better understandings of these cancer mechanisms and resistance that can translate into advancing clinical therapies for the treatment of these high grade gliomas. The team is finalizing preclinical experiments necessary to pursue clinical trials to test drugs that target glioma stem cells of patients who are unfortunately diagnosed with this kind of incurable tumor.
Materials provided by Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
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Journal Reference:
D A Almiron Bonnin, M C Havrda, M C Lee, H Liu, Z Zhang, L N Nguyen, L X Harrington, S Hassanpour, C Cheng, M A Israel. Secretion-mediated STAT3 activation promotes self-renewal of glioma stem-like cells during hypoxia. Oncogene, 2017; DOI: 10.1038/onc.2017.404
