Malignant glioblastoma multiforme is a deadly brain tumor for which no long-term effective cure exists. Because drugs in the blood do not pass from the blood vessels to the brain, effective amounts of chemotherapy drugs do not reach the tumor. Increasing dosages damage normal brain tissue and cause significant neurological damage. These dosages also would likely be harmful to [...]
The prospective study looked at a gene called MGMT in tumors removed from 833 glioblastoma patients. It showed that when the gene promoter is altered by a chemical change called methylation, patients respond better to treatment. “We show that MGMT methylation represents a new genetic test that can predict clinical outcomes in glioblastoma patients who have been treated [...]
Hans-Peter Kiem, M.D., a member of the Hutchinson Center’s Clinical Research Division, and colleagues Jennifer Adair, Ph.D., a research associate in the Clinical Research Division, and Maciej Mrugala, M.D., Ph.D., M.P.H., a neuro-oncololgist at the Seattle Cancer Care Alliance and the University of Washington, presented data from a clinical trial in which bone marrow stem cells from patients with brain [...]