Video: ExpeLab “Brain cancer research"

Glioblastoma is the most common primary brain tumor in adults, but also the most aggressive. Infiltrative, it penetrates and spreads rapidly through brain tissue, making surgical removal difficult, if not impossible. Today, doctors still have few effective treatments to offer patients, mainly because of the blood-brain barrier.

This structure, present only in the cerebral vascular system, acts as a highly selective filter to protect the brain. Unfortunately, it also severely limits chemotherapy treatments, which have difficulty reaching the peri-tumoral region where many cancer cells are infiltrated, and more than 80% of recurrences occur.

Hélène Elleaume, an Inserm research director at the STROBE laboratory, and Sébastien Rigollet, a postdoctoral researcher at the GIN, are attempting to make the blood–brain barrier more permeable by using focused ultrasound and gas microbubbles together. This could lead to new treatments for brain tumours.

The 360° irradiator, a cutting-edge infrastructure recently inaugurated on the IRMaGe platform, will enable them to study the effects of carboplatin chemotherapy combined with radiotherapy. Their preclinical work is yielding highly promising results, with the prospect of transferring it to a clinical trial in the near future.