The patient's own fat tissue will help in the treatment of deadly forms of brain cancer
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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Scientists have developed a new technology for treating a life-threatening form of brain cancer. As a source of medicines, specialists plan to use the patient's own fat tissue. According to the idea of experts, stem cells (mesenchymal) will be extracted from the patient's fat and injected directly into the brain.
To date, this technology has been tested on laboratory rodents and as a result of the experiment rodents could live longer.
Such treatment in humans can be performed after the operation to remove the tumor. Stem cell therapy will finally destroy the remaining cancer cells in the remote regions of the brain. 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 have the ability to excrete the BMP4 protein, which suppresses malignant processes and takes part in regulating 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. By and large, the rodents who received stem therapy lived for more than two months, while the control group who did not receive treatment lived for less than two months.
In humans, aggressive forms of brain cancer are treated with chemotherapy, an operative method (tumor removal), radiation therapy. However, even treatment in several ways seldom extends life more than 1.5 years after the detection of the disease.
As experts note, it will take several more years of research before we can 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 methods of treatment have a mass of adverse reactions that significantly impair the quality of life of the patient.
Recent developments of scientists have successfully coped with leukemia in adolescents. In four years, the boy was diagnosed with a terrible diagnosis, after which the child went through all possible methods of treatment, from chemotherapy to bone marrow transplantation from the next of kin, but the disease progressed.
The last hope of both parents and doctors was experimental therapy, during which the immune T-cells of the boy were used. Specialists extracted immune cells from the baby's body and introduced new genes into them, after which the cells were reintroduced to the boy. As a result, the altered cells began to actively develop, while destroying the cancer cells. It is noteworthy that after such treatment the child had virtually no adverse reactions (only mild symptoms of cold appeared).
After the immune therapy, the child's body has learned to cope with cancer on its own. In just two months of treatment, the traces of the disease completely disappeared from the boy's body.
After that, immune therapy was tested on a few more volunteers, and the results of the study showed good results (18 patients out of 21 recovered). According to doctors, in 3-5 years this technology of leukemia treatment can enter into medical practice.