Il y a une grande percée dans le développement de médicaments contre les tumeurs cérébrales chez l'enfant. Les tumeurs cérébrales des enfants sont une maladie maligne plus courante chez les enfants. Des recherches récentes ont montré qu'un nouveau médicament cocktail peut traiter les tumeurs cérébrales courantes chez les enfants.
Cancer Cell” magazine recently announced that in the UK about 400 children develop brain tumeurs each year, of which the prevalence of boys is slightly higher than that of girls.
Pouvons-nous profiter des résultats des tests génétiques tumoraux et des traitements sur mesure - une stratégie souvent appelée médecine personnalisée - cette stratégie de traitement peut produire de très bons résultats pour les patients atteints de tumeurs cérébrales.
Neural myeloblastoma (medulloblastoma) is one of the most common malignant tumors of the cerebellum. This tumeur au cerveau grows rapidly and most often occurs in children around the age of 5. Treatment options include surgery, radiation and chemotherapy. Although great progress has been made in treatment methods and techniques, the success rate of treating myeloblastoma still lags far behind other children’s malignancies. In particular, myeloblastoma is a highly aggressive malignancy. Only 40% of patients with médulloblastome survive, compared with other tumors of a less severe type-with a survival rate of more than 80%.
Researchers in the United States have discovered a new combination therapy for the treatment of highly aggressive neuroblastome. In laboratory tests, the drug killed cancer cells without any toxicity to normal cells, and researchers hope to conduct clinical trials of the drug. Robert Wechsler-Reya, an adjunct professor at the Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Institute, said: “Our goal is to confirm that the drug has low toxicity properties. Because doctors and patients in this case urgently require new clinical treatment options, we will soon apply the drug from the laboratory to clinical treatment.
En se combinant avec d'autres médicaments, de nouveaux composés qui inhibent les tumeurs sont criblés in vitro et in vivo.
Clinical trials for neuroblastoma are often very challenging because of the limited number of patients. In addition, coupled with the variability of the disease, most treatments are only effective for one subtype of patient. Understanding which patients will respond to this treatment is one of the main goals of the trial.
«Si nous pouvons développer des traitements sur mesure basés sur les gènes de la tumeur - une stratégie communément appelée traitement individualisé - cela pourrait apporter un énorme évangile aux patients atteints de certaines tumeurs.»
Il existe quatre types distincts de neuroblastome, et les patients avec un troisième groupe de tumeurs ont le pire pronostic - seulement 40% des patients survivent à long terme. En revanche, la survie à long terme des autres neuroblastomes est relativement optimiste et environ 80% des patients peuvent survivre à long terme.
La plupart du troisième groupe de patients atteints de neuroblastome ont une expression élevée de l'oncogène MYC, qui est la cause d'une division cellulaire incontrôlable et de la formation de tumeurs.
A study of mice with a third type of neural tube cell tumors showed that histone deacetylase inhibitors (HDACIs) and phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase inhibitors (PI3KIs) may stop mice and humans from making neurotubular glioblastomas while not hurting normal cells too much.
Assistant professor Pei Yanxin at the National Children’s Medical Center in Washington, D.C., said, “Our initial screening identified several histone deacetylase inhibitors that can kill MYC oncogene-activated neural tube cell tumors without harming normal cell agents (HDACIs).”
“The most effective of these compounds is panobinostat, which has entered clinical trials in other types of cancer, but has not yet been tested on neuroblastoma.” Dr. Kun-Wei, a postdoctoral researcher at Stanford University, added: “Several other studies have revealed that the mechanism of action of panobinostat is to promote the activation of the FOXO1 gene that can interfere with the oncogenes of MYC.
On pense également que les inhibiteurs de la phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3KI) ont pour effet d'activer le gène FOXO1. Nous avons émis l'hypothèse que le panobinostat et les inhibiteurs de la phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI3KI) pourraient travailler ensemble pour bloquer la survie des cellules cancéreuses.
“It is true that the combined treatment of these two drugs can significantly increase the survival of patients with tumors carrying the MYC gene compared to using a single drug alone.”
