Brain Cancer: Cancers are not completely cured even in the present time when the field of medicine has developed so much. But doctors and researchers are constantly developing new treatments. Meanwhile, progress has been made in the case of brain cancers. A team of scientists from the University of California, San Francisco Medical Center in the US has found a key point. The team was led by Sarita Krishna, an Indian doctor.
In the case of brain cancers, cancer cells, along with healthy brain cells, become hyperactive. Sarita Krista’s team found that a commonly used anti-seizure drug was effective in stopping their growth, which was causing the deaths of the patients. The study was published in the science journal “Nature”. Scientists have discovered that communication between healthy brain cells and cancer cells can slow or even stop tumor growth. The study said it could be beneficial for patients with the most dangerous ‘glioblastoma’ brain cancer.
A study led by Sarita Krishna and scientist Shawn Hervey Jumper found that brain tumors can hijack and modify brain circuitry, causing dementia and slowing of brain function in glioma patients. Saritha from Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala said that while the patients were undergoing brain surgery while they were conscious, when they were given a language task, they found activation in the language areas of the brain as well as in the areas of the brain where the cancer cells were located. This showed that malignant cancer cells can also hijack connections in surrounding brain tissue, making them hyperactive and shortening patient survival, he said.
This experiment revealed the crucial role of the protein ‘thrombospondin-1’ in neuronal hyperexcitability. Gabapentin, a commonly used anti-seizure drug, successfully reduced neuronal hyperexcitability and halted tumor growth, the study said. The scientists noted that this discovery could be very beneficial in developing more effective treatment methods for highly malignant diseases such as glioblastoma.
Moreover, Sarita said, the key discovery about the hijacking of brain circuitry by a cancer cell could lead to the development of drugs and neuromodulation techniques that can disconnect neuronal links with brain cancer cells to stop tumor growth. Non-invasive brain modulation techniques traditionally applied to modulate neuronal function in epilepsy and psychiatric diseases are now being used. It could be used in clinical trials and tested in brain cancer patients to suppress glioma activity, she said.
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