New Hope for Children With Highly Aggressive Brain Tumors

A promising target for children with highly aggressive brain tumors such as atypical teratoid and rhabdoid tumor (AT/RT) and medulloblastoma can help treat brain tumors, reveals a new study.//

Previously, the authors of the study have shown that an experimental drug that inhibits polo-like kinase 4 (PLK4) stopped pediatric brain tumor growth in vitro.

‘Targeting PLK4 with chemotherapy drugs can kill the cancer cells and prevents atypical teratoid and rhabdoid tumor in children.’

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Now, they have demonstrated its success in an animal model - the drug shrank the tumor and increased survival. The findings were published in Oncotarget.

Importantly, the PLK4 inhibitor was able to cross the blood-brain barrier, which means that the drug can target cancer cells in the brain even when taken orally, avoiding the need for injection into the spinal fluid.

In this new study, researchers also demonstrated that when they associate a PLK4 inhibitor with traditional chemotherapy drugs, they kill tumor cells with significantly lower drug doses.

Brain Tumor in Children - Types, Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis & Treatment
An abnormal growth of cells in the brain is called brain tumor. Most tumors arise within the brain (primary). They can be benign or cancerous.

"We are very excited with the outcome of this work," said lead author Simone Treiger Sredni, MD, PhD, Associate Professor of Pediatric Neurosurgery at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and cancer researcher at the Stanley Manne Children's Research Institute of Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago.

"This promising treatment strategy may also help us reduce toxicity when used with other chemotherapy agents."

About Brain Tumor
Brain tumors are the abnormal growth of brain cells that may be benign or metastatic. Brain tumors account for about 2.4% of all the tumor diagnosesandare most challenging due to their critically delicate location.

In a previous study, Sredni and colleagues were the first to describe PLK4 as a therapeutic target for brain tumors and in pediatric cancer. They found that, in these particular types of tumors, PLK4 regulates tumor growth and the tumor's tendency to metastasize.

AT/RT is a therapy resistant brain tumor that mostly occurs in infants.

Astrocytoma - Causes, Symptoms, Diagnosis & Treatment
Astrocytomas are primary brain tumors and the most common type of glial tumors. There are many varieties of astrocytomas, and it is seen in all age groups.

Medulloblastoma is the most frequent malignant brain tumor in children and current treatments for it are highly toxic. Both of these types of brain tumors have a high mortality rate.

"New targeted therapies are urgently needed for children with AT/RT and medulloblastoma," said Sredni.

"We expect that targeting PLK4 will prove to be an effective and less toxic treatment approach for these children, and we hope to move to a clinical trial soon."

Source-Eurekalert