The epidermal growth factor receptor has received much interest as a target for various antineoplastic agents, but a complication is that many normal tissues also express this receptor. We have previously identified in human glial tumors an 801-bp in-frame deletion within the epidermal growth factor receptor gene that created a novel epitope at the junction. By using Western blot assays with a ...

Desmosterol (24-dehydrocholesterol), a precursor of cho lesterol, represents 5 to 20% of the total sterols of the brain during maturation, although it is practically absent in normal adult brain. The desmosterol content is increased to a small extent in human glial tumors and in some transplantable experimental tumors. In the present experiments it has been shown that desmo sterol accumulates i...

Malignant glioma development after trauma is a rare occurrence. We report a glioblastoma multiforme case that developed after a depressed skull fracture. A 65-year-old man was admitted because of right sided hemiplegia, epilepsy and changes in consciousness due to a malignant glial tumor. He had been operated on for a left calvarial depression fracture caused by cerebral laceration thirty-fi ve...

Glioma is a type of primary central nervous system (CNS) tumor that arises from glial cells. Although gliomatosis cerebri (GC) is a subtype of the CNS glioma, it is distinct from other tumors of glial origin and classified as neuroepithelial tumor of uncertain origin. Primary GC shows diffuse infiltration of neoplastic glial cells through more than two cerebral lobes or the infratentorial struc...

The early events in neoplastic transformation can be understood only by comparison of the neoplastic cell with its nontransformed counterpart. The most common central nervous system gliomas traditionally are thought to arise from mature astrocytes and oligodendrocytes. We examined the possibility that gliomas arise from a population of glia that has properties of oligodendrocyte progenitors. Th...