Thursday, February 6, 2014

Brain Tumors & The Usage Of A Two-Drug Tandem

By Robbie Sutter


Brain tumors are going to be given a great amount of focus as far as the usage of certain drugs is concerned. Some of these drugs may be more useful than others but the truth of the matter is that they can come from many different sources. While it's clear that there are those which are entirely unique, there are just as many - if not more - that have been put to use in order to treat entirely different conditions in the past. Is it possible, then, that a two-drug combination can help matters in this particular field?

According to an article on YottaFire, it appears as though this is the case, as a new combination of drugs has been put to use in order to help slow down the growth rate of brain tumors. The study was conducted through a group of mice in order to see how well their survival rates have become. Fortunately, results were positive, as their levels of survival were made even greater. This is just the start as to why such a story is worthy of the attention of organizations such as Voices against Brain Cancer.

Dana-Farber Cancer Institute put together the study and it was determined that a combination of two drugs working together could play positively into the actions of glioblastoma. With this particular tandem, it would be able to focus on two cell signaling pathways. A previous study was done but it was deemed unsuccessful because of how only one pathway was focused on. While this improvement is worthy of note, what is more worthy has got to be a certain abnormality that is typical amongst one-third of glioblastoma patients.

The report talked about the loss of a gene referred to as PTEN. For those who are unaware, PTEN acts as a tumor-suppressing gene. If the PTEN gene is not seen, though, the body is met with a chain reaction that can cause overactive molecular growth signals which, in turn, can cause cells to grow at malignant rates until the activity eventually reaches the brain. With these drugs brought into effect, the gene in question is not replaced but rather the growth caused is blocked.

It's apparent that the human body goes about all types of actions, whether or not we know of them. It's clear that we won't be able to understand all of them but it is clear that they are carried out for certain reasons. For example, the lack of PTEN is one that can bring brain tumors to the surface. It's an unfortunate case to make but the truth of the matter is that there are certain drugs that can be utilized; it's just a matter of determining how effective they will be from one patient to the next.




About the Author:



0 comments:

Post a Comment