An experimental drug derived from cottonseeds shows promise in treating the recurrence of glioblastoma multiforme, widely considered the most lethal brain cancer, said researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB).

Research using a newly developed algorithm has significantly advanced understanding of the molecular events associated with the most common primary brain tumor in adults, human glioblastoma (GBM).

Malignant tumors have usually lost their ability to destroy themselves by programmed cell death, or apoptosis. Therefore, tumors are often resistant to chemotherapy or radiation therapy, whose effect is based on forcing tumor cells to commit suicide.

Perhaps the only positive spin one can put on the brain cancer glioblastoma is that it’s relatively uncommon. Other than that, the news is bad. It is nearly always fatal, it tends to strike people in the prime of their lives, and the limited treatment options have changed little over decades.

An upcoming G&D paper from Dr. Azad Bonni and colleagues at Harvard Medical School lends new insight into how the unique genetic signature of glioblastoma tumors affects treatment efficacy - a finding with promising hope for the therapeutic targeting of the leading cause of cancer-related deaths in the young and middle-aged population.

In a clinical trial published this week in PLoS Medicine, Charles Sawyers and colleagues looked at the safety of a drug called rapamycin in a selected group of patients who were undergoingsurgery after recurrence of glioblastoma (a highly malignant tumor of the brain).

North Central Cancer Treatment Group (NCCTG) researchers, based at Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., report that a novel application of the drug vorinostat shows activity in patients with recurrent glioblastoma multiforme. These findings were presented today at the American Society of Clinical Oncology Annual Meeting by Eva Galanis, M.D. a Mayo Clinic oncologist and lead investigator of the study.

A phase II clinical trial of an angiogenesis inhibitor to treat glioblastoma has shown promise in a majority of patients tested, say researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School. But they also say that the novel imaging and biomarker studies they performed as treatment was underway have revealed why the treatment, AZD2171, ultimately failed, and what might improve the response.