Brain cancer, or glioma, is one of the most dangerous and aggressive tumor types that exist. In addition to being one of the most complex to try and combat. And although they account for only about 2% of all brain tumors, they cause more than 6% of all cancer deaths.
Now, a team of Spanish researchers could have found the key to stopping the progression of glioma, thanks to a protein known as tau, which was considered primarily responsible for provoking Alzheimer’s.
Research concludes that this protein would appear in less aggressive glioma tumors. By decreasing their levels, tumors increase their aggressiveness to generate new blood vessels that are corrupted with cancer cells and get nutrients with which to survive.
In this way, the protein, which is also present in cases of neurodegenerative diseases, could become the starting point when it comes to combating some of the most aggressive gliomas. It would serve, for example, to combat the appearance of glioblastomas; a very advanced type of brain cancer, with a survival rate that usually does not exceed 15 months.
So far, those responsible for this discovery have studied the reaction of a pharmacological compound derived from taxol, which would act in a similar way to the tau protein, and which, in addition, would be much less toxic than this.
This compound, combined with other more conventional treatments to treat tumor progression, such as chemotherapy, would serve, as experts anticipate, to significantly increase the survival rate of glioma patients.
