Scientists have developed a new treatment for a childhood brain tumor

Photo Source: Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center
U.S. scientists have found that in laboratory and mouse models, a combined treatment for drug-resistant, relapse-prone low-grade gliomas slows tumor growth and kills tumor cells.
researchers at the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine used capratin and Evimos to treat these brain tumors. Capote is a standard chemotherapy drug that works well for these brain tumors, while ivemos blocks an enzyme called mTOR. Previous studies have shown that this enzyme accelerates the growth of these brain tumors.
studies have shown that in laboratory models, this combined treatment promotes DNA damage and apoptosis. The findings were published recently in the journal Neuro-Oncology.
low-grade gliomas in children are the most common brain tumours in children and are usually treated only by surgery. However, some patients have special tumor locations (e.g. near the optic nerve or in the central brain area), the risk of surgery is too high, or the tumor grows again after surgery.
About 50 percent of patients treated with low-grade gliomas have a recurrence and need additional chemotherapy, said Eric Raabe, associate professor of oncology and paedocephaly specialist at Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center. Recurring tumors often develop chemotherapy resistance, so researchers wanted to know if a combination of carabin and ivemos would be more effective.
study showed that four different human low-grade glioma cell linees did not respond to the drug and continued to grow when treated with carptin alone. Similarly, some cell linees continue to grow when treated with Yvymos alone.
When the same cell line was treated with caprap and ivemos, the apoptosis or growth slowed, and the researchers observed similar results in mouse models, with no increased toxicity.
"We have observed dramatic growth inhibitions simply by combining low concentrations of ivemos and carabin. Raabe said, "We found that Evimox destroyed the key mechanisms that cancer cells use to detoxify carbotin. Evimos can increase the efficacy of carabin, and this result suggests that this combination therapy can be used effectively in patients. In
previous clinical trial in 2014, Raabe and other researchers determined the safety of the mTOR blocker ivemos in patients with low-grade gliomas in children, and found that some patients responded to the drug. However, they never tested the tumor tissue in these patients to understand the molecular action of mTOR.
"Current U.S.-wide Ivemos clinical studies of low-grade gliomas in children require an assessment of tumor tissue in each patient, as well as an understanding of the expression of mTOR markers, which may predict the response to Ivemos. Raabe said.
this way we want to find out which patients are most likely to respond to the drug so that we can get closer to our goal of providing the right medication to the right patients at the right time," Raabe said. In the future, perhaps we can provide evymos and carabin therapy to patients with high levels of mTOR expression. According to our study, it is expected that these tumors may become resistant to carabin unless we block mTOR at the same time. (Source: Zhao Xixi, China Science Journal)
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