Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University (Sechenov University), 8-2 Trubetskaya St., Moscow 119991,Russian Federation.
National Research University Higher School of Economics, 20 Myasnitskaya Street, Moscow 101000,Russian Federation.
Curr Top Med Chem. 2019;19(32):2974-2984. doi: 10.2174/1568026619666191112140939.
Glioblastoma is a highly aggressive and invasive brain and Central Nervous System (CNS) tumor. Current treatment options do not prolong overall survival significantly because the disease is highly prone to relapse. Therefore, research to find new therapies is of paramount importance. It has been discovered that glioblastomas contain a population of cells with stem-like properties and that these cells are may be responsible for tumor recurrence.
A review of relevant papers and clinical trials in the field was conducted. A PubMed search with related keywords was used to gather the data. For example, "glioblastoma stem cells AND WNT signaling" is an example used to find information on clinical trials using the database ClinicalTrials.gov.
Cancer stem cell research has several fundamental issues and uncertainties that should be taken into consideration. Theoretically, a number of treatment options that target glioblastoma stem cells are available for patients. However, only a few of them have obtained promising results in clinical trials. Several strategies are still under investigation.
The majority of treatments to target cancer stem cells have failed during clinical trials. Taking into account a number of biases in the field and the number of unsuccessful investigations, the application of the cancer stem cells concept is questionable in clinical settings, at least with respect to glioblastoma.
胶质母细胞瘤是一种高度侵袭性和浸润性的脑和中枢神经系统 (CNS) 肿瘤。目前的治疗选择并不能显著延长总生存期，因为这种疾病极易复发。因此，寻找新疗法的研究至关重要。研究发现，胶质母细胞瘤中存在具有干细胞样特性的细胞群体，这些细胞可能是肿瘤复发的原因。
对该领域的相关论文和临床试验进行了综述。使用相关关键词在 PubMed 上进行了搜索，以收集数据。例如，“胶质母细胞瘤干细胞 AND WNT 信号”是一个在数据库 ClinicalTrials.gov 上查找使用临床试验信息的示例。
癌症干细胞研究存在一些基本问题和不确定性，需要加以考虑。从理论上讲，有几种针对胶质母细胞瘤干细胞的治疗选择可供患者使用。然而，只有少数在临床试验中取得了有希望的结果。还有几种策略仍在研究中。
大多数针对癌症干细胞的治疗方法在临床试验中都失败了。考虑到该领域存在的许多偏见和不成功的研究数量，癌症干细胞概念在临床环境中的应用是值得怀疑的，至少在胶质母细胞瘤方面是如此。
