Theragen ETEX said Tuesday that it has
developed a technique, which can identify the cause of recurrence of pediatric
brain tumor, using genetic analysis technique.
A team, led by professors from Seoul
National University Hospital and Sunchon National University, conducted the
genetic analysis of 17 children with recurrent malignant blastoma, who
underwent surgical resection. A malignant blastoma is a type of brain tumor.
The team found that the frequency of DNA
mutations in the recurrent tissues increased, while new mutations occurred in
genes associated with cancer, such as PTEN and mTOR.
A distinctive feature of this study was
that the team discovered the characteristic of malignant gliomas gene
expression patterns in some of the tumors that were previously thought to be
recurrent blastoma tumors.
There is no appropriate treatment for
recurrent malignant blastoma now. Although the treatment success rate is not
high, malignant gliomas are treatable as various studies are going on to treat
the disease, the company said. “Therefore, it is essential to determine whether
the patient is suffering from either a recurrent malignant blastoma or gliomas
through genetic analysis,” it noted.
According to the company, the medical
sector has recognized the research as a study, which has confirmed genetic
analysis using next-generation sequence analysis (NGS) has a high utility value
in the diagnosis of recurrent tumors
Also, Theragen ETEX expects that the
possibility of target treatment through its genome analysis will provide a
basis for introducing precision medicine into the diagnosis and treatment of
pediatric brain tumors.
