Isolation and Characterization of Human Malignant Glioma Cells from Histologically Normal Brain (original) (raw)

1997, Journal of Neuro-Ophthalmology

ALIGNANT gliomas pose a formidable therapeutic challenge because of their invasive growth characteristics. Glioma cells that have infiltrated beyond gross tumor into histologically normal brain cannot be completely removed surgically; they are protected by an intact blood-brain barrier and do not appear to enter mitosis, thus making radiotherapy and chemotherapy less effective. Malignant glioma cells invade beyond abnormalities detected with computerized tomography and magnetic resonance (MR) imaging; 7,8,23 they often invade the brain more than 2 cm beyond the gross tumor, 7 are not usually found within the confines of a single carotid artery or vertebral artery distribution, 7 and are shown at autopsy to have extended farther than predicted antemortem. 7,15,20,21,31,32,35 However, in previous studies determination of the extent of tumor cell invasion relied on the identification of tumor cells in surgical or autopsy specimens using various standard staining techniques. Until now efforts have not been made to initiate tumor cells from histologically normal brain in culture to document their presence and to characterize these important cells biologically.

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