Glioblastoma Case Studies

The etiology of brain cancer, like other malignancies, involves a complex interplay between epigenetic and genetic changes occurring during the natural history of tumor growth and development. Genetic changes accumulate in the form of mutations, activation of proto-oncogenes, or the loss of tumor suppressor genes that could promote tumor progression, invasion, and metastasis; this process provides a rational basis for targeting one or more critical genetic defects in cancer cells by using gene-mediated therapy approaches(Parks & Bramson, 1999).
Glioblastoma is a heterogeneous disease with a spectrum of histopathological characteristics and numerous genetic aberrations per tumor(Lee et al., 2008). GBMs invade the brain aggressively, as a result
Thus the control of MMP has long been proposed as a therapeutic antitumor strategy(Brown, 1999). . Elevated tissue levels of MMP-9 are also associated with invasion, metastasis and poor prognosis in different types of cancer including cervical(Yu, Liu, Xiong, Ai, & Wang, 2009), colorectal (Zeng, Huang, Cohen, & Guillem, 1996), ovarian(Sillanpää et al., 2007) and breast cancer (McGowan & Duffy, 2008). Furthermore elevated levels of MMP-9 in the serum and urine have also been found to be associated with metastasis and poor prognosis in a diversity of cancers (Roy, Yang, & Moses, 2009). The latent and active forms of MMP-9 was detected in the cerebro spinal fluid(CSF) of patients with primary and metastatic brain tumors. This gelatinase distribution in CSF differentiates patients with malignant gliomas from those without the brain tumor. Analysis of MMPs in the CSF may be a sensitive technique for diagnosing CNS tumors and provide an early indication of tumor recurrence(Friedberg, Glantz, Klempner, Cole, & Perides, 1998). The amounts of MMP-9 was found to be significantly higher in malignant astrocytomas than in lower grade gliomas and in normal brain samples( Rao et al., 1996). Active MMP-9 was found to be present in primary GBM subtype. Latent MMP-9 expression