Glioma

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Editor-In-Chief: C. Michael Gibson, M.S., M.D. [1]

Associate Editor-In-Chief: Cafer Zorkun, M.D., Ph.D. [2]

Please Take Over This Page and Apply to be Editor-In-Chief for this topic: There can be one or more than one Editor-In-Chief. You may also apply to be an Associate Editor-In-Chief of one of the subtopics below. Please mail us [3] to indicate your interest in serving either as an Editor-In-Chief of the entire topic or as an Associate Editor-In-Chief for a subtopic. Please be sure to attach your CV and or biographical sketch.

Overview

A glioma is a type of primary central nervous system (CNS) tumor that arises from glial cells. The most common site of involvement of gliomas is the brain, but gliomas can also affect the spinal cord or any other part of the CNS, such as the optic nerves.[1]

Classification

By type of cell

Gliomas are named according to the specific type of cell they most closely resemble. The main types of gliomas are:

By grade

Gliomas are further categorized according to their grade, which is determined by pathologic evaluation of the tumor.

  • Low-grade gliomas are well-differentiated (not anaplastic); these are benign and portend a better prognosis for the patient.
  • High-grade gliomas are undifferentiated or anaplastic; these are malignant and carry a worse prognosis.

Of numerous grading systems in use, the most common is the World Health Organization (WHO) grading system for astrocytoma. The WHO system assigns a grade from 1 to 4, with 1 being the least aggressive and 4 being the most aggressive. Various types of astrocytomas are given corresponding WHO grades.

WHO grading system for astrocytomas

The prognosis is the worst for grade 4 gliomas, with an average survival time of 12 months. Overall, few patients survive beyond 3 years. [4] [5]

By location

The gliomas can also be roughly classified according to their location:

  • infratentorial : mostly in children (70%)
  • supratentorial : mostly in adults (70%)

Diagnosis

Symptoms

Symptoms of gliomas depend on which part of the central nervous system is affected. A brain glioma can cause headaches, nausea and vomiting, seizures, and cranial nerve disorders as a result of increased intracranial pressure. A glioma of the optic nerve can cause visual loss. Spinal cord gliomas can cause pain, weakness, or numbness in the extremities. Gliomas do not metastasize by the bloodstream, but they can spread via the cerebrospinal fluid and cause "drop metastases" to the spinal cord.

On May 20th 2008, it was announced that 76 year old Senator Edward Kennedy had a malignant glioma of the left parietal lobe following a seizure.

MRI

Images shown below are courtesy of Professor Peter Anderson DVM PhD and published with permission © PEIR, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Pathology



CT

Image courtesy of Professor Peter Anderson DVM PhD and published with permission © PEIR, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Pathology


Pathology

High-grade gliomas are highly-vascular tumors and have a tendency to infiltrate. They have extensive areas of necrosis and hypoxia. Often tumor growth causes a breakdown of the blood-brain barrier in the vicinity of the tumor. As a rule, high-grade gliomas almost always grow back even after complete surgical excision.

On the other hand, low-grade gliomas grow slowly, often over many years, and can be followed without treatment unless they grow and cause symptoms.

Treatment

Standard therapy

Treatment for brain gliomas depends on the location and the grade. Often, treatment is a combined approach, using surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy. The radiation therapy is in the form of external beam radiation or the stereotactic approach using radiosurgery. Spinal cord tumors can be treated by surgery and radiation. Temozolomide is a chemotherapeutic drug that is able to cross the blood-brain barrier effectively and is being used in therapy.

Experimental therapies

The use of oncolytic viruses or gene therapy using prodrug converting retroviruses and adenoviruses is being studied for the treatment of gliomas.[2][3]

A small number of low-scale clinical studies have shown possible links between prescription of Carphedon and improvement in a number of encephalopathic conditions, including lesions of cerebral blood pathways and certain types of glioma.

American scientists are also studying the effects of Leiurus quinquestriatus scorpion (Israeli Yellow Scorpion) venom on glioma. They have successfully isolated the peptide chlorotoxin from the venom of the L. quinquestriatus scorpion by means of gel filtration chromatography. The peptide appears to target glioma-specific chloride ion channels within the cancerous glial cells of the brain, where it binds with a high affinity.

In 2006, German physicians reported on a dose-escalation study for the compound AP 12009 (a phosphorothioate antisense oligodeoxynucleotide specific for the mRNA of human transforming growth factor TGF-beta2) in patients with high-grade gliomas. At the time of the report, the median overall survival had not been obtained and the authors hinted at a potential cure.

As of 2006, additional research started within the past few years is ongoing. Some of the topics included in this research are:

  • efficiency of variations in radiotherapy procedures
  • drugs to stop the growth of tumors by preventing them to develop blood vessels
  • efficiency of combinations of different treatments
  • vaccination therapy.

Although there have been individual cases of patients receiving an experimental treatment who still showed no signs of tumor 3 years or even more after the first diagnosis, often a new treatment for GBM will already be considered successful if it significantly increases the percentage of survivors after two years.

A cancer vaccine "Oncophage" is currently showing great promise in clinical trails, 2007.

Pathological Findings

Microscopic Images

Images shown below are courtesy of Professor Peter Anderson DVM PhD and published with permission © PEIR, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Pathology


















Gross Images

Images shown below are courtesy of Professor Peter Anderson DVM PhD and published with permission © PEIR, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Department of Pathology






















References

  1. Mamelak A.N., and Jacoby, D.B. Targeted delivery of antitumoral therapy to glioma and other malignancies with synthetic chlorotoxin (TM-601) Expert Opin. Drug Drliv. (2007) 4(2):175-186.
  2. Gromeier M, Wimmer E (2001). "Viruses for the treatment of malignant glioma". Curr. Opin. Mol. Ther. 3 (5): 503–8. PMID 11699896.
  3. Rainov N, Ren H (2003). "Gene therapy for human malignant brain tumors". Cancer journal (Sudbury, Mass.). 9 (3): 180–8. PMID 12952303.

Recent Publications

  • Su Y, Zhang X, Gu J, Zhang C, Tian Z, Zhang J. JSI-124 Inhibits Glioblastoma Multiforme Cell Proliferation through G2/M Cell Cycle Arrest and Apoptosis Augment. Cancer Biol Ther. 2008 May 10;7(8). [Epub ahead of print] PMID 18487947 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
  • Emblem KE, Nedregaard B, Nome T, Due-Tonnessen P, Hald JK, Scheie D, Borota OC, Cvancarova M, Bjornerud A. Glioma grading by using histogram analysis of blood volume heterogeneity from MR-derived cerebral blood volume maps. Radiology. 2008 Jun;247(3):808-17. PMID 18487536 [PubMed - in process]
  • Capuani S, Porcari P, Fasano F, Campanella R, Maraviglia B. (10) B-editing (1) H-detection and (19) F MRI strategies to optimize boron neutron capture therapy. Magn Reson Imaging. 2008 May 15. [Epub ahead of print] PMID 18486394 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
  • Chung IS, Son YI, Ko YJ, Baek CH, Cho JK, Jeong HS. Peritumor injections of purified tumstatin delay tumor growth and lymphatic metastasis in an orthotopic oral squamous cell carcinoma model. Oral Oncol. 2008 May 15. [Epub ahead of print] PMID 18485794 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
  • Ahmed AE, Jacob S, Nagy AA, Abdel-Naim AB. Dibromoacetonitrile-induced protein oxidation and inhibition of proteasomal activity in rat glioma cells. Toxicol Lett. 2008 Apr 8. [Epub ahead of print] PMID 18485629 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]

External links


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