Something about Glioblastoma multiforme- Brain Tumor

Sudeep Joseph for Dream Visions September 18, 2008

Glioblastoma multiforme is one of the most common and devastating type of primary brain tumour that affects adults. It is also known as high grade or grade 4 astrocytomas. In the brain gliomas grow from glia cells and usually occur in the cerebral hemisphere and also develop into other areas including the optical nerve the brain stem and the cerebellum. The symptoms of the glioblastoma depend on their location, size, rate of growth, and stage. The symptoms include

Ø Abnormal pulse and breathing rate.

Ø Deep, dull headaches that recur often and persist without relief for long periods of time.

Ø Difficulty walking and speaking.

Ø Dizziness

Ø Eye sight problems and including double vision.

Ø Seizures

Ø Vomiting

Ø Dramatic changes in blood pressure at later stages.

Chemotherapy and radiation therapy were used to treat the glioblastoma. But it was not 100% successful, so researchers tried to use some drug along with radiation therapy. Temozolomide is widely used. The trial with temozolomide was conducted by the European Organization for Research and Treatment of cancer and The National cancer Institute of Canada and presented to American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO). They found that after two years 26% of patients taking temozolomid were alive compare to just 10% of those who had radiation only. The median survival in the radiation plus temozolomide group was 14.6 months compared to 12.1 months in the radiation alone group.

In another clinical trail glioblastoma multiforme is treated with Tf-CRM 107. The common name is Trans MID. It is a normal protein called tranferrin that is linked to a modified diphtheria toxin.

The diphtheria toxin is modified such a way that it will not cause any symptoms of diphtheria. Diphtheria toxin gets into the tumour cells when transferring – diphtheria complex binds to trasferrin receptors on the surface of tumour cell. The high Levels of transferring receptor expression on glioma cells make it an ideal target in the treatment of brain tumours. Inside the cell the toxin interferes with the ability of the cells to synthesis proteins by interfering with elongation factor 2 (EF-2) which ultimately kills the cancer cell. The Tf-CRM 107 is directly pumped into brain tumour via two catheters using the technique convection enhanced delivery (CED) which was developed at National Institute of Health in the United States.