The treatment could greatly the survival times for patients with glioblastomas
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| Pet Scan of Human Brain (Wikimedia publc domain) |
Glioblastomas is an especially virulent form of brain cancer, almost universally fatal to those who contract it. The cancer can be treated with surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, but such treatments only delay the inevitable. Thus far it has been proven to be all but impossible to eradicate glioblastomas permanently. Tumors can be removed, but they leave behind cancerous tentacles that grow back into cancers. The survival rate for this form of brain cancer is just over 30 percent, according to Gizmag.
Now, a team of researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC) have come upon a new way to treat brain cancer using adult stem cells derived from human skin. In 2006, the discovery was made that skin cells could be converted into stem cells that could then be converted into any type of cell of the human body. The discovery led to a Nobel Prize awarded in 2012. The possibilities for regenerative medicine are profound.
