Glioblastomas are the most aggressive high-grade gliomas, characterized by diffuse infiltrative growth, high migration potential, angiogenesis, predisposition for necrosis that are decisive steps in resistance to therapy. In spite of current advances, the treatment of these tumors remains a challenge for oncologists. Because of the poor prognosis of these patients, development and testing of more effective therapeutic strategies is undertaken by several medical scientific communities. One of the new classes of drugs that are tested in vivo and in vitro is represented by the dye-compounds. This review focuses on efficacy of these drugs and their mechanisms of action in glioblastomas.
Currently, brain tumors are diagnosed based on clinical suspicion and neuroimaging results. Histological analysis is the only method that certifies the diagnosis and establishes the prognosis. A number of studies suggest that perturbed iron metabolism and increased ferritin levels are part of the changes associated with tumorigenesis. Our study’s aim is to evaluate serum ferritin levels in a series of patients and establish if this protein could play a role in brain cancer diagnosis and prognosis. Our lot is comprised of 267 patients with various types of brain tumors. We registered higher mean ferritin levels when compared to the general population. According to tumor histology, higher levels were found in cerebral metastases patients, and the differences were statistically significant. According to tumor grading, we found higher ferritin levels in grade II tumors, with statistically significant differences when compared to grade I and grade IV tumors. It remains an open question if high ferritin levels are a hallmark for cerebral metastases or just an expression of systemic dissemination. Also, a possible role for ferritin as a biomarker in grade II brain tumors may be established by further studies.
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