Using Fat to Fight Brain Cancer

In laboratory studies, Johns Hopkins researchers report, in a study published in  PLOS ONE, that they have found that stem cells from a patient’s own fat may have the potential to deliver new treatments directly into the brain after the surgical removal of a glioblastoma. As mesenchymal stem cells (MSCs) have an unexplained ability to seek out damaged cells, they may provide clinicians a new tool for accessing difficult-to-reach parts of the brain where cancer cells can hide and proliferate anew. For their test-tube experiments, Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, MD, FAANS, a professor of neurosurgery, oncology and neuroscience at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and his colleagues bought human MSCs derived from both fat and bone marrow, and also isolated and grew their own stem cell lines from fat removed from two patients. Comparing the three cell lines, they discovered that all proliferated, migrated, stayed alive and kept their potential as stem cells equally well. Ideally, if MSCs work, a patient with a glioblastoma would have some adipose tissue removed — from any number of locations in the body — a short time before surgery. The MSCs in the fat would be drawn out and manipulated in the lab to carry drugs or other treatments. Then, after surgeons removed the brain tumor, they could deposit these treatment-armed cells into the brain in the hopes that they would seek out and destroy the cancer cells. To learn more about the study, click here.