New Delhi, Oct 3 || Glioblastomas -- the deadliest form of brain cancer -- affect much more than just the brain, scientists have found.
A team from the Montefiore Einstein Comprehensive Cancer Center (MECCC) and Albert Einstein College of Medicine has found the first evidence to show that glioblastoma can erode the skull, alter the makeup of skull marrow, and interfere with the body's immune response.
Importantly, drugs intended to inhibit skull-bone loss made the cancer more aggressive, according to results published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.
"Our discovery that this notoriously hard-to-treat brain cancer interacts with the body's immune system may help explain why current therapies -- all of them dealing with glioblastoma as a local disease -- have failed, and it will hopefully lead to better treatment strategies," said corresponding author Jinan Behnan, Assistant Professor, Department of Neurological Surgery and in the department of microbiology and immunology at Einstein.