Sci Rep: Leukemia drug shows hope for childhood brain cancer!

!---- medulloblastoma is a common intracranial malignancy in children that grows extremely rapidly, surgery is not easy to remove in its entirety, and tumor cells have a tendency to grow dispersive lyson along the cerebrospinal fluid., Brazilian scientists have discovered the potential of arsenic trioxide, a drug used to treat leukemia, to treat myelin cell tumors.researchers at the Ribrepreto School of Medicine (FMRP-USP) at the University of Sao Paulo in Brazil confirmed that the leukemia drug arsenic trioxide has the potential to treat myelin, the most common type of brain cancer in children.they successfully killed the tumor cells when they tested arsenic trioxide on cells extracted from the most aggressive subgroups of these tumors.the drug also makes tumor cells more sensitive to radiation therapy.the study published in The Scientific Reports.first author of the article entitled "Arsenic Trioxide exerts cytotoxic and radiosensitizing effects in pediatric Medulloblastoma cell lines of SHH Subgroup": "Currently 12 myelin cell tumor subgroups have been identified based on molecular characteristics, which are also associated with prognosis.SHH is one of the worst subgroups of prognosis.the tumor's TP53 gene has somatic cell mutations and is currently being treated with chemotherapy and radiotherapy." is also part of his FMRP-USP Master's study and has received a scholarship from the Brazilian National Council for The Development of Science and Technology (CNPq).the study is part of the "Interaction between Emerging Therapeutic Goals and Developmental Pathways Associated with Tumor Occurrence: Focusing on Childhood Malignant Tumors" project, led by FMRP-USP Professor Luiz Gonzaga Tone. "The project is dedicated to further studying the signaling disorderthat that controls normal embryonic development and its link to the onset and progression of cancer in children,"Tone said." radiotherapy can cause serious adverse effects on the child's brain, causing cognitive, endocrine and motor problems.therefore, it is important to develop treatment strategies that reduce or eliminate the need for radiation therapy.in the study, the researchers selected different SHH tumor cell lines and tested different doses of arsenic trioxide, a drug used to treat acute myeloid leukemia.they also tested the relationship between radiation and administration at different doses.has been shown that arsenic trioxide kills tumor cells and blocks the formation of new tumor cell colonies. when the drug is combined with radiotherapy, the effect is enhanced. and the drug is not significantly toxic to healthy cells. , arsenic trioxide can be used alone to treat myeloma in children under 3 years of age, or in combination with chemotherapy drugs. children with brain cancer this age cannot receive radiation therapy because it can cause irreversible damage to the central nervous system. mutation chose arsenic trioxide because it is a well-known SHH signaling pathway blocker in leukemia. The SHH pathway is critical to human embryonic development, and when embryonic development is complete, the SHH pathway is turned off. But if the pathway is reactivated for some reason, cancer develops, including skin cancer as well as leukemia and myeloid cell tumors. Professor Elvis Terci Valera, the paper's author, said: "Another advantage of arsenic trioxide is its ability to cross the blood-brain barrier and protect the central nervous system from circulating toxins or pathogens. previous studies have shown that this penetration is possible in myelin cell tumors. "SHH-type myelin cell tumor is generally moderate prognosis, with 50% of patients responding well to treatment. However, when the TP53 gene mutates in somatic cells, the prognosis becomes worse because the gene plays a key role in cell division control and can offset changes that can lead to cancer. "The mutation in the gene is associated with Lee-Fomeni syndrome (LFS), which usually involves loss of TP53 function and increases susceptibility to various types of tumors," Klinger said. "Lee-Fomeni syndrome is associated with genetic susceptibility to a range of cancers and increases the risk of myeloma in children, especially SHH myelin oblastoma." currently, researchers are planning to test the drug in animal models to determine if the results are the same as those from cell experiments. if they are the same, they can then be tested in the human body. .