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Comment by johndavidback | Hacker News Reader

If this drug also kills cells in near proximity to the cancer, would it be effective treatment for brain tumors?

It sounds like it wouldn't be perfect (some good brain cells would die), but it'd likely be a heck of a lot more selective than existing methods of dealing with brain tumors. And certainly better than an alternative of letting the tumor grow any more.

It sounds like this could work on cancerous tissue in its infancy, which is probably the most promising thing. Imagine a potential vaccine for cancer, just enough dosage to kill that first bad group of cells.

The bigger problem with brain cancer is crossing the blood-brain barrier, no?

I don't think this molecule can do that.

Brain cancers mostly disrupt the blood brain barrier, Which is an organised tissue structure that exists to preserve the microenvironment of the brain against normal fluctuations and insults. Cancer is disorganised tissue that doesn't know how to produce nice neat blood brain barrier tissue organisation

Correct. This tumor-mediated disorganization of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is what enables cytotoxic drugs to reach larger cancerous brain lesions, which explains why these growths often show a clinical response. Under normal circumstances, many cytotoxic drugs cannot cross the BBB.

if you are looking for treatment options for brain cancer, please see http://pubmedly.com/demo there's the standard temodar and then there's the other options that may have better outcomes, like novocure

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