Malignant brain tumors often fail to respond to promising new medication. Researchers in Heidelberg have discovered a mechanism and a tumor marker for the development of this resistance. A “death receptor” can possibly provide information as to how great the chances of success are for chemotherapy. At the same time, it offers a new approach for promising brain tumor therapy.

In the fruit fly's developing brain, stem cells called neuroblasts normally divide to create one self-renewing neuroblast and one cell that has a different fate. But neuroblast growth can sometimes spin out of control and become a brain tumor.

Duke University engineers have taken a first step toward a minimally invasive treatment of brain tumors by combining chemotherapy with heat administered from the end of a catheter.

Natalie Ciaccio, a fourth-year graduate student researcher in the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of Kansas, is investigating what might be an ideal target for anti-cancer drug therapy, and she is focusing her work on brain tumors specifically.

Scientists at The University of Nottingham have uncovered a vital new biological clue that could lead to more effective treatments for a children’s brain tumour that currently kills more than 60 per cent of young sufferers.

Genetic aberrations in childhood brain tumors provide precise information on the course of the disease; Heidelberg researchers publish in the Journal of Clinical Oncology

The combination of two drugs produces a critical improvement in the treatment of certain brain tumours. This has been demonstrated by researchers at Bonn University working in co-operation with German and Swiss colleagues in a current study.

In laboratory and animal studies, a 2-pronged gene therapeutic approach resulted in tumor regression and long-term survival; next step is a human clinical trial

A new Mayo Clinic study found that patients with low-grade gliomas survived longest when they underwent aggressive surgeries to successfully remove the entire tumor. If safely removing the entire tumor was not possible, patients survived significantly longer when surgery was followed by radiation therapy.

Chemotherapy may help delay cranial radiation and minimize damaging side effects

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) researchers are investigating a new approach to gene therapy for brain tumors – delivering a cancer-fighting gene to normal brain tissue around the tumor to keep it from spreading.

In a study using laboratory animals, researchers found that medications commonly prescribed for erectile dysfunction opened a mechanism called the blood-brain tumor barrier and increased delivery of cancer-fighting drugs to malignant brain tumors.