“googleleft”> "We found that about 5 percent of glioblastomas contain amplification of multiple receptor tyrosine kinase genes — specifically EGFR, MET and PDGFA — in intermingled mosaic subpopulations of cells," says John Iafrate, MD, PhD, of the MGH Department of Pathology and MGH Cancer Center, corresponding author of the report appearing in the Dec. 13 issue [...]
Malignant gliomas account for more than half of the ȃ,000-plus primary malignant brain tumors diagnosed each year in the United States. Unfortunately, the outlook for patients with malignant gliomas is poor. For patients with the most severe, aggressive form of malignant glioma (grade IV glioma or glioblastoma multiforme), median survival is 9 to 15 months with the best available [...]
“When thinking about therapeutics [targeting cancer stem cells], you have to be careful that you aren’t interfering with normal stem cells,” said Christine Eyler of the Cleveland Clinic. “Glioma stem cells are not derived from normal stem cells but they do share many features with them. The trick to therapy is to find pathways exhibited only by cancer stem cells.” [...]