A joint research team, consisting of researchers from Yonsei University College of Medicine and Severance Hospital, has developed a therapeutic agent that increases the efficacy of glioblastoma (GBM) anticancer drugs by 136 percent.
GBM is a cancer that occurs in nerve cells in the brain. The cancer progresses rapidly and is difficult to treat. The average survival time of patients is only 18 months, and the five-year survival rate is less than 3 percent.
Patients should receive radiation and chemotherapy for treatment within 14 days after surgery as GBM can spread fast. As the metastasis is rapid, the efficacy of anticancer drugs is lower than that of other cancer types.
To solve the problem, the team developed a "GBM miniature" that can examine the response of radiation and chemotherapy along with a therapeutic agent that improves the efficacy of anticancer drugs by transporting the treatment to brain cancer stem cells.
Professors Sung Hak-joon and Yu Seung-eun, and researcher Baek Se-woom at Yonsei University College of Medicine, and Professors Kang Seok-gu and Yoon Seon-jin at Severance Hospital participated in the research.
By culturing the tumor tissue obtained from surgery, the team created a miniature that embodies the real brain tumor environment.
The tumor culture method had a 69 percent higher success rate than that of the conventional cell culture method and a shorter culture period of about three weeks compared to conventional methods.
The team also developed a therapeutic agent that delivers drugs by making brain tumor stem cell-derived nanovesicles, which are nano-sized carriers in which DNA and RNA are stably packaged and can be loaded with drugs.
While the efficacy of anticancer drugs was 22 percent when administered alone, the researchers confirmed that by using the developed nanovesicles, they could increase the efficacy of anticancer drugs to 52 percent.
“From therapeutics that enhance the efficacy of anticancer drugs to miniatures that can confirm the efficacy of the drugs, our study has laid the foundation for conquering GBM,” Professor Sung said.