Introduction Astrocytic brain tumors – Gliomas in particular – are the most common brain tumors in adults. These malignant neoplasms are characterized by heterogeneous tissue with no distinct differentiation to healthy tissue because of their infiltrative growth. Therefore, the ratio of tumor cells versus healthy tissue in the tumor margin needs to be determined very precisely when the decision...

BACKGROUND Molecular targeted therapies for astrocytic tumors are the subject of growing research interest, due to the limited response of these tumors, especially glioblastoma multiforme, to conventional chemotherapeutic regimens. Several of these approaches exploit the inhibition of receptor tyrosine kinases. To date, it has not been elucidated if fms-like tyrosine kinase-3 (Flt3) and its nat...

BACKGROUND Gastrin and cholecystokinin (CCK) mediate their effects through at least two types of receptors (CCK receptors A and B). While it has been hypothesized that gastrin, a stimulator of gastric acid secretion, is also a neurotransmitter and a stimulator of cell proliferation in various normal and neoplastic tissues, its effect on astrocytic brain tumors has not been actively investigated...

Background Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a class IV astrocytic tumor, the most malignant of the four groups of World Health Organization (WHO) tumors with astrocytic differentiation. Aim The aim of this study was to estab-lish whether a correlation exists between the Ki-67 index of tumors with astrocytic differentiation, WHO grade, and patient survival. Materials and methods A retrospective ...

Three different membrane-type matrix metalloproteinases (MT1-, MT2-, and MT3-MMPs) are known to activate in vitro the zymogen of MMP-2 (pro-MMP-2, progelatinase A), which is one of the key MMPs in invasion and metastasis of various cancers. In the present study, we have examined production and activation of pro-MMP-2, expression of MT1-, MT2-, and MT3-MMPs and their correlation with pro-MMP-2 a...

In the United States and the San Francisco Bay Area, whites are nearly twice as likely as non-whites to develop brain cancer. To test whether prevalence and types of alterations in the p53 pathway in brain tumor development may explain some of this difference in risk, we have analyzed the p53 status of astrocytic gliomas from a population-based sample of cases within our San Francisco Bay Area ...

OBJECTIVE To report the clinical and histopathologic findings of retinal astrocytic tumors that showed progressive growth in four patients with tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). METHODS Four young children each developed an enlarging retinal neoplasm that eventually necessitated enucleation of the affected eye. The systemic findings, clinical course, and histopathologic findings were reviewed...

Astrocytic tumor is the most prevalent primary brain tumor. However, the role of cell surface carbohydrates in astrocytic tumor invasion is not known. In a previous study, we showed that polysialic acid facilitates astrocytic tumor invasion and thereby tumor progression. Here, we examined the role of HNK-1 glycan in astrocytic tumor invasion. A Kaplan-Meier analysis of 45 patients revealed that...

BACKGROUND Till date there is no published multi-institutional data regarding the epidemiological profile of pediatric brain tumors in India. AIM The present retrospective study analyses the histological spectrum of pediatric age group brain tumors in seven tertiary care hospitals in India. MATERIAL AND METHODS Data regarding frequencies of various primary brain tumors (diagnosed according ...

We investigated genetic heterogeneity of astrocytic gliomas using p53 gene mutations as a marker. Different parts of morphologically heterogeneous astrocytic gliomas were microdissected, and direct DNA sequencing of p53 gene exons 5 through 8 was performed. Thirty-five glioma samples and tumor-adjacent normal-appearing brain tissue from 11 patients were analyzed. Sixteen different p53 gene muta...