Glioma Brain Tumors
For years, researchers puzzled over an aggressive form of brain cancer. The lethal glioma tumors often outsmart traditional cancer treatments such as surgery, and quickly invade healthy brain tissue. But now an understanding of the biological makeup and survival mechanisms of glioma tumors is helping researchers develop methods that they hope will kill the cancer.
Brain tumors always have been one of the most devastating diseases because they are so difficult to treat, much less cure. But now scientists are on track toward finding what may be definitive treatments for the most virulent of these tumors.
The growing mass of cells in a brain tumor bullies healthy cells by pushing them out of their way and squeezing them against the skull. This hinders the brain's ability to orchestrate life functions. Depending on the tumor's size and location, paralysis, behavior changes and dizziness, to name a few of the symptoms, can occur.
A glioma tumor is particularly damaging because it tends to quickly sprout and spread within the brain. Each year, approximately 20,000 Americans find out that they have a glioma. More than half die within 18 months.
Researchers have come closer to improving these odds by examining the biology of glioma tumors in animals and humans. Studies are uncovering the cancer's unique characteristics, including the mechanisms that help it survive and spread throughout the brain.
The advances may help make the diagnosis less grim by leading to:
Therapies that target glioma cells but leave normal cells unharmed.
Methods that limit the spread of the cancer.
Treatments that block the tumor's life-sustaining molecules