Deadly Brain Cancer Needs ’Fat’ to Grow

Local Editor

Scientists thought for decades they knew what a deadly form of brain tumor needed to grow: sugar.

However, researchers now found that a trick used to culture tissues in the lab had actually been fooling them and what glioma cancer cells actually require is fat.

The discovery led to an entirely new approach to treating the disease, which could ultimately result in drugs that are able to significantly extend the life of patients.

Meanwhile, Gliomas, such as astrocytoma or ependymoma, are among the hardest cancers to treat with 60 per cent of sufferers dying within a year.

It had been thought that the brain cancer cells were no different and tests of tissue samples in the lab appeared to confirm this.

When tissue samples and live tumors in mice were treated with a drug, called etomoxir, designed to prevent the cells from using fat, it slowed the cancer's growth, the researchers reported in the journal, Neuro-Oncology.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team