Pre-Clinical Models and Potential Novel Therapies for Glioblastomas

Abstract

Glioblastoma is an extremely aggressive form of cancer most commonly derived from neural stem cells, astrocytes, and oligodendrocytes that occurs in the brain and has a 5-year survival rate of 6.7%. These gliomas have an incidence of 3.19 cases per 100,000 person and are assigned grade IV according to the World Health Organization classification of brain tumors. Current approved therapies include surgical resection followed by a combination of radiation and chemotherapy with temozolomide, and more recently tumor-treating (TT) fields. However, there are many limitations with the current treatment strategies due to several resistance mechanisms varying from low concentrations of chemotherapeutics crossing the blood brain barrier to increased risk of temozolomide resistance in a sub-set of patients. In recent years, novel therapies and delivery systems have been developed to overcome these limitations. In this chapter, we discuss pre-clinical assessments and the evaluation of potential, promising therapeutics in xenograft models for glioblastoma using advanced magnetic resonance imaging techniques.