New tool can predict where deadly brain cancer might reappear

Glioblastoma is a devastatingly effective brain cancer. Doctors can cut it out or blast it with radiation, but that only buys time. The cancer has an insidious ability to hide enough tumor cells in tissue around the tumor to allow it to return as deadly as ever.

Patients diagnosed with glioblastoma survive for an average of 15 months.

Currently, doctors plan surgeries to remove glioblastoma tumors based on radiological scans, but that only provides a view of the area just outside the cancer's edge. During surgery, fluorescent dyes highlight cancer cells, but the dyes don't penetrate deeply and the cells have to be visible to the eye.

Munson's research focuses primarily on interstitial fluid flow - the movement of fluid through the spaces between cells in tissues. The flow behaves differently in different diseases.

In studying glioblastoma, Munson's lab found that faster flows predict where tumor cells are invading. More random motion of the fluid, or diffusion, however, correlates with less invasion by the cancer cells.

But a new metric Munson's team developed proved to be the best predictor. The fluid flow around the tumor establishes pathways, like streams merging into rivers, which the cancer cells follow to migrate into the surrounding tissue.

"This could tell a surgeon where there's going to be a higher chance of there being more tumor cells, so they might be a little more aggressive, if it's safe to the patient to go after a more invasive region," Munson said.

"Cairina is trying to take this to the next level," Munson said. "Our goal is to supply surgeons and radiation oncologists with probability maps or hotspot maps, where we would predict more cancer cell invasion to support more aggressive therapeutic application, and also to identify where there may be less invasion, to help spare tissue from unnecessary treatment."

This research was funded by grants from the National Cancer Institute, the Red Gates Foundation, the American Cancer Society, and the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.

Source:

Virginia Tech

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