2023-10-25 20:07:03
One of the main barriers to treatments for brain cancer is the barrier that the cerebrospinal fluid represents for the access of drugs to the tumor. This barrier reduces the effectiveness of current treatment in brain cancer.
Furthermore, according to research published in the magazine ‘Science Advances‘, cerebrospinal fluid, the clear, colorless fluid that protects the brain, may also be a factor that makes brain cancers resistant to treatment.
However, a drug used to treat anxiety for decades can overcome this barrier and thus improve the effectiveness of chemoradiotherapy against glioblastoma, the most common and lethal brain cancer, explains a team of Australian researchers led by Cedric Bardy, from the Institute South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI) and the Flinders University.
Brain cancers kill more children and adults under 40 than any other cancer. They are resistant to therapies that eliminate tumors in other parts of the body.
This collaborative team of neurobiologists, neurosurgeons and oncologists tested the effect of the valuable resource of human cerebrospinal fluid on the growth of tumor cells obtained from 25 local glioblastoma patients.
Among their findings, the tumor cells rapidly changed their identity and became more resistant to radiation and the drug. temozolomidewhich are the pillars of glioblastoma therapy.
‘Glioblastoma kills many otherwise fit, healthy and young people within months. “This is a horrible disease and the available treatments are simply not effective enough despite the serious side effects,” says Bardy.
New therapy
In his opinion, the study “helps us understand the limitations of current chemotherapies and provides new hope for repurposing a class of drugs that could be added to standard therapy.”
Investigating the molecular basis of these changes, they found that glioblastoma cells exposed to cerebrospinal fluid were more resistant to ferroptosis, a form of therapy-induced cell death.
Additionally, they showed that trifluoperazine, an anxiolytic used since the 1950s, could resensitize glioblastoma cells to both therapies. And trifluoperazine was found not to damage healthy brain cells.
The researchers believe that Combining trifluoperazine with standard care may improve survival of patients with GBM.
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