Study Cites New Treatment Strategy for Fatal Brain Tumor in Children

(Photo: Bessi on Pixabay) DIPG diagnosis usually takes place in children aged five to 10 years, although any child can experience it, and at rare times, it may also occur in adults.

Development against the deadly childhood brain tumor known as Diffuse Intrinsic Pontine Glioma or DIPG is usually said to be a game of inches. Now, research hinting at small or minor benefits could be a reason to celebrate.

This is also the reason why the University of Michigan researchers and their collaborators are eager to find discoveries pointing toward a probable treatment method—something that considerably prolonged times of survival in a couple of mouse models of DIPG.

The researchers' findings, which were published in the journal Cancer Cell, proposed that concurrently targeting two pathways of energy production within cancer cells, can contribute to overcoming DIPG hallmarks and similar tumors.

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Unexpected Discovery

An epigenetic change affects how a gene gets used minus the changes in fundamental DNA sequence—akin to the manner a playlist of songs can be substituted as necessarily changing exactly the said songs.

According to the study's senior author, Sriram Venneti, M.D., Ph.D., what they discovered unexpectedly, is that this mutation particularly augments activity in a pair of metabolic pathways in the cell. Such pathways also directly impact changes within the cell.

Venneti, also a U-M Rogel Cancer Center and Chad Charr Pediatric Brain Tumor Center neuropathologist and researcher, added that the question was if they can use metabolic medicines to disturb the said pathways of energy production within the cancer cells, and, simultaneously modify the epigenome of the cells productively.

As a result, based on their observation of the two different rodent models of DIPG, the authors found a resounding yes for an answer.

Stopping each of the pair of metabolic pathways provided a minimal increase in the length of time the mice survived. Meanwhile, targeting the two pathways simultaneously resulted in the mice surviving much longer. 

In one of the mouse models, DIPG was found to be always fatal. However, as indicated in the study, when both experimental compounds were given, 60 percent of the mice were alive.

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Treatments for the Condition

Experts say DIPG treatments are badly needed. Venetti noted that while studies on treatment methods are still in their initial stages, pre-clinical outcomes, they are excited about continuing to devise this new method.

DIPG diagnosis usually takes place in children aged five to 10 years old. However, any child can experience it, and at rare times, it may also occur in adults.

These tumors begin in the brainstem, making them almost impossible to remove by surgery. In 2015, the five-year-old grandson of ex-U-M football coach Lloyd Carr, Chad Carr, reportedly died 14 days after he was diagnosed with DIPG. 

The study unveiled a new finding of the biology of DIPGs and related tumors through the assessment of cancer cells and imaging scans from patients.

The authors also discovered two different mutation types, which include one seen in children who have DIPG, and the other observed in brain tumors of adults—both, they said, are mutually exclusive.

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