For long, treatment approaches to glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer, have assumed that the disease is localized. However, a recent study has found that GBM erodes the skulls of its victims and this could partially explain why the current therapies have had dismal success rates against the tumors.
For their study, the team analyzed scans of the skulls of mice afflicted by two types of glioblastoma. They found that the skulls were thinner than they should be. On examining scans of humans with GBM, they found altered skull thickness, especially in the areas where bones fused.
The study showed that as the cancer eats away at the skulls of mice with glioblastoma, the size and number of channels existing within the skull and bone matrix increases. The scientists believe that these alterations enable the cancer to impact the immune system. RNA sequencing tests provided proof of this when the tests showed that GBM threw out of whack the environment of the bone marrow within the skull.
The team found that the cancer caused the environment within the marrow inside the skull to become filled with pro-inflammation neutrophils. At the same time, the cancer decimated B-cells, the immune cells responsible for producing antibodies tasked with fighting cancer.
The researchers say that by increasing the channels within the skull, glioblastoma is able to flood its tumors with pro-inflammatory cells originating from the marrow. In this way, the cancer is fueled to become increasingly more aggressive in its progression. The scientists suggest that it is therefore necessary to consider treatments aimed at restoring normalcy to immune cells within the marrow inside the skull.
One possible way to restore that balance would be by ramping up the production of B and T cells in the marrow while simultaneously suppressing the production of monocytes and neutrophils that are pro-inflammation.
When the researchers administered two drugs currently approved to combat osteoporosis, each of those drugs did halt bone loss in the skull. However, one of those therapeutics accelerated the progression of one of the GBM subtypes under study, and both drugs suppressed the effectiveness of an immunotherapy drug known to bolster T cell production, the cells that fight cancer.
These drawbacks show that there is plenty that needs to be studied about the mechanisms at play when GBM invades skull marrow. However, one thing is clear; the fight against glioblastoma needs to shift from regarding the cancer as something localized and instead treat it as a systemic disease.
For companies like CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) seeking to develop a new range of treatments indicated for glioblastoma and other cancers of the central nervous system, there is plenty of work to do to understand more of the mechanisms through which these malignancies resist existing treatments.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to CNS Pharmaceuticals Inc. (NASDAQ: CNSP) are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/CNSP
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