The most common form of primary brain tumor glioma, affecting about 25,000 Americans each year poses a dilemma for doctors and patients trying to make decisions about treatment. Many of these tumors will be particularly vicious, killing patients within months of diagnosis even in the face of the most vigorous therapy. Still others are less aggressive, but these can be difficult to distinguish under the microscope.

Now, scientists at the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center and the National Institutes of Health demonstrate that the "molecular fingerprint," or protein patterns, of gliomas can be used to classify tumors and predict their aggressiveness.

"This study is important because we show that the 'molecular fingerprint' of the tumor can be used to assess the progression of disease and more importantly predict how aggressively it will behave," said Richard Caprioli, Ph.D., Stanley Cohen Professor of Biochemistry at Vanderbilt. "This is the necessary step toward the goal of predictive medicine, where clinicians would analyze an individual's tumor, scientifically predict how it will behave and use that information to tailor treatment decisions," Findings by Caprioli and his colleagues are being reported today in Boston at the annual International Molecular Targets and Cancer Therapeutics: Discovery, Biology and Clinical Application," a meeting organized by the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR), the National Cancer Institute (NCI) and the European Organization for Research and Treatment of Cancer (EORTC).

The conference brings together 2,500 scientists and clinicians to share the latest information in the field known as molecular targeting, which offers the potential of a new generation of drugs to kill cancer cells with pinpoint accuracy.

Caprioli's co-authors on the abstract include Dr. Robert J. Weil, formerly a Vanderbilt faculty member now with the National Institutes of Health, and Vanderbilt scientists Sarah A.
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Contact: Cynthia Floyd Manley or Clinton Colmenares
cynthia.manley@vanderbilt.edu
615-322-4747
Vanderbilt University Medical Center
19-Nov-2003

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