VIDEO: Molecular markers important in diagnosis, treatment of gliomas

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Gliomas are a family of tumors. Within some of these types, even there are different grades of gliomas. What we've learned over the last few years is that particular genetic alterations are very important in terms of diagnosis and prognosis of gliomas. In fact, the last two additions of the World Health Organization have introduced molecular markers in addition to the standard histopathological markers to make a diagnosis of a particular kind of glioma or the grade of a glioma.

And, the number of mutations can vary also in different types of gliomas. For example, a grade four, what we now call IDH wild-type glioblastoma, tends to have many more mutations within it, many more potential oncogenic drivers within it, which the presence of those make it very difficult in terms of treatment approaches, in terms of targeted therapies because there are so many genetic alterations in it. At the other end of the spectrum, there are certain low-grade gliomas where the genetic composition is more homogeneous and offers potentially a better target for using targeted therapies. And we'll come back to targeted therapies in a bit.