malignant brain tumors

(Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) In a study using laboratory animals, researchers found that medications commonly prescribed for erectile dysfunction opened a mechanism called the blood-brain tumor barrier and increased delivery of cancer-fighting drugs to malignant brain tumors.

(Cedars-Sinai Medical Center) Researchers conducting a clinical trial of a dendritic cell vaccine designed to fight malignant brain tumors called glioblastoma multiforme have found a correlation between the "intensity" of a patient's immune response and clinical outcome, according to an article in the July 15 issue of the journal Cancer Research.

(University of Alabama at Birmingham) The Ivy Genomics-Based Medicine Project is designed to improve treatment for malignant brain tumors by striving to unravel the genetic differences between gliomas.

Consortium members like UAB will categorize tumors using sophisticated molecular profiling and, for the first time, test each tumor against a wide spectrum of treatments to match DNA markers with cancer-fighting response.

(University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center) Researchers at The University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center will advance two new therapeutic approaches for malignant brain tumors and develop biomarkers to guide treatment decisions under a major translational research grant from the National Cancer Institute.

(University Hospitals of Cleveland) A new study from University Hospitals Case Medical Center finds that elderly patients -- 75 years old and older -- with malignant brain tumors are not treated as aggressively as patients between 65 and 75 years old.

Furthermore, the researchers find that if patients over 75 years old are treated aggressively, such as with surgery and radiation, they have better survival rates.

The findings appear in the April issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery.

Speaking today at the UK National Stem Cell Network Annual Science Meeting in Edinburgh, Professor Silvia Marino shows how the mechanisms normally involved in balancing different functions of stem cells may also contribute to cancer.

Her team from Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry is currently delving into these mechanisms to understand how stem cells are normally regulated, and what role they may play in malignant brain tumors.