Glioblastoma is the most common, aggressive and lethal brain tumor in
adults. However, current therapeutic protocols have low success rates, and average
overall survival is less than 15 months. The resistance to therapy is largely a result of
the remarkable cellular and phenotypical heterogeneity that characterizes this type of
tumor. The discovery of a subpopulation of cells exhibiting stem cell properties within
the tumor bulk has profound implications for therapy as increasing evidence indicates
that these cells, glioblastoma stem cells (GSCs), are responsible for the origin,
maintenance and recurrence of the glioblastomas. These findings highlight the need to
characterize GSCs in order to find novel treatments directly targeted specifically against
them. In this chapter, we summarize the current knowledge regarding this issue,
including some recent and relevant patents.
Keywords: Antiangiogenic therapy, cancer stem cell, chemoresistance,
differentiation therapy, glioblastoma multiforme, glioblastoma stem cell, glioma,
metastasis, molecular target, neural stem cell, neurogenesis, patent,
radioresistance, radiosensitizing therapy, stem marker, tumorigenicity, tumor
recurrence, virotherapy, temozolomide.
