Brain tumor | Healing process that follows brain tumor, injury can trigger brain cancer, study finds

New Delhi: The human body is amazing, and even when the body only intends to do good, to heal, and to recover from certain health issues it is facing, sometimes the healing processes can backfire. According to the latest study, for example, the healing process that follows a stroke, trauma, brain infection or brain injury can trigger the development of cancer, according to one study.

According to researchers from Canada, when they analyzed tumor cells from 26 patients with a common but aggressive form of brain cancer known as glioblastoma, it was found that mutations can derail the supposed process. create new cells to replace those that have been lost and peak tumor growth

The team hopes the research will help develop therapies more suited to patients with brain cancer. According to the researchers, the findings could lead to new therapies for patients with glioblastoma, who currently have limited treatment options and an average lifespan of just 15 months after diagnosis.

“Our data suggests that the right mutational change in particular brain cells could be altered by injury to give rise to a tumor,” said author and neurosurgeon Peter Dirks of the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.

“Glioblastoma can be thought of as a wound that keeps healing,” said Dr. Dirks.

“ We’re excited about what this tells us about how cancer starts and grows and it opens up entirely new ideas for treatment with a focus on responding to injury and inflammation. ”

Researchers used single-cell RNA sequencing and machine learning technologies to map the molecular makeup of glioblastoma stem cells – the one responsible for tumor initiation and recurrence after treatment.
The team discovered new subpopulations of glioblastoma stem cells that carry the molecular characteristics of inflammation and intermingle with other cancer stem cells inside patients’ tumors.

These findings, according to Dr Dirks, suggest that some cancers begin to form when the normal tissue healing process begins, which is actually supposed to generate new cells to replace those lost to injury, is derailed by mutations.

This, he added, could happen many years before a patient becomes symptomatic.

Once a mutant cell engages in wound healing, it keeps multiplying – with all normal controls broken – stimulating tumor growth, the team said.

“The goal is to identify a drug that will kill glioblastoma stem cells,” said author and molecular geneticist Gary Bader of the University of Toronto.

“But first we had to understand the molecular nature of these cells so that we could target them more effectively.

The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Cancer.

With the initial study now complete, researchers are now looking to target these biases for suitable therapies.

“We are now looking for drugs that are effective at different points of this gradient,” said author and cancer genomicist Trevor Pugh of the Princess Margaret Cancer Center in Toronto.

“There is a real opportunity here for precision medicine: to dissect tumors from patients at the single-cell level and design a drug cocktail that can kill multiple cancer stem cell subclones at the same time.