Researchers at Uppsala university have developed a new method to find mutations in brain tumors in children. They also showed that the mutations change how cancer cells respond to a cancer drug. These findings could lead to better diagnostics and more individualized treatment of children with brain tumors. The study is published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Medulloblastoma is the most common malignant brain tumor in children. It usually develops in the cerebellum and although modern treatment has improved the prognosis so that more than 70% of patients now live more than five years, not all patients can be cured. The aggressive cancer treatment also causes severe side effects such as balance problems and impaired learning abilities in cancer survivors.
Numerous studies have explored the less than 2% of human DNA that gives rise to proteins, and much less is known about the rest of the genome. In a cancer, such as medulloblastoma, 98% of the mutations thus occur in the less studied part of the genome. There could be thousands of mutations, and it is difficult to separate the ones driving the cancer from those without importance.
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