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Patient's own adipose tissue could help treat deadly forms of brain cancer
Last reviewed: 02.07.2025
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Scientists have developed a new technology for treating a life-threatening form of brain cancer. The specialists plan to use the patient's own fat tissue as a source of medicine. According to the experts' idea, stem cells (mesenchymal) will be extracted from the patient's fat and injected directly into the brain.
To date, a similar technology has been tested on laboratory rodents and as a result of the experiment, the rodents were able to live longer.
Similar treatment in humans can be carried out after tumor removal surgery. Stem cell therapy will allow the remaining cancer cells in remote areas of the brain to be completely destroyed. Stem cells from adipose tissue, namely mesenchymal cells, have one distinctive property: they are attracted to pathological cells. As a result of the changes, the cells acquired the ability to secrete the protein BMP4, which suppresses malignant processes and takes part in the regulation of embryonic development.
A medical experiment showed that the introduction of the drug stopped the development and spread of the tumor, as a result of which the cancer acquired less aggressive forms. Overall, the rodents that received stem cell therapy lived for more than two months, while the control group, which did not receive treatment, lived for slightly less than two months.
In humans, aggressive forms of brain cancer are treated with chemotherapy, surgery (tumor removal), and radiation therapy. However, even treatment with several methods rarely prolongs life by more than 1.5 years after the disease is detected.
As experts note, several more years of research will be needed before it will be possible to talk about the effectiveness of the method of treating cancer with stem cells from the patient's fat.
Scientists are constantly looking for ways to effectively fight cancer. Modern treatment methods have a lot of side effects that significantly worsen the patient's quality of life.
The latest developments by scientists have made it possible to successfully cope with leukemia in a teenager. At the age of four, the boy was given a terrible diagnosis, after which the child underwent all possible treatment methods, from chemotherapy to a bone marrow transplant from a close relative, but the disease progressed.
The last hope of both parents and doctors was an experimental therapy that used the boy's immune T-cells. Specialists extracted immune cells from the child's body and introduced new genes into them, after which the cells were reintroduced into the boy. As a result, the modified cells began to actively develop, while destroying cancer cells. It is noteworthy that after this treatment, the child had virtually no side effects (only mild cold symptoms appeared).
After immune therapy, the child's body learned to cope with cancer on its own. In just two months of treatment, all traces of the disease disappeared from the boy's body.
After that, the immune therapy was tested on several more volunteers, and the results of the study showed good results (18 patients out of 21 recovered). According to doctors, in 3-5 years, such a technology for treating leukemia may enter medical practice.