Glioblastoma

Liquid biopsy, a priority in the research program

  • Secretary

    Gaetano Finocchiaro

    IRCCS SAN RAFFAELE Milano

  • Clinical Coordinator

    Andrea Pace

    IRE Roma

  • Pre Clinical Coordinator

    Stefano Indracciolo

    IOV Padova

Glioblastoma is the most common of malignant brain tumours – with approximately 1,500 new cases diagnosed every year in Italy. It is more common in men than in women and mainly occurs in people between 55 and 75 years old.

The Glioblastoma Working Group set up by the Alliance Against Cancer – coordinated by Gaetano Finocchiaro of the IRCCS Besta in Milan with the collaboration of the preclinical coordinator Stefano Indraccolo of the IOV and the clinical coordinator Andrea Pace of the Regina Elena in Rome – is made up of a dozen laboratories from as many IRCCSs working in neuro-oncology. The activities involve exchanging samples and sharing both the results of specific tests and cell lines originating from the neoplasm.

Glioblastoma research in ACC is mainly focused on the Glioblastoma Liquid Biopsy (GBM_LIB) project, which aims to introduce liquid biopsy into the clinical armamentarium in neuro-oncology. This general objective is divided into three more specific objectives:

  • assess whether a ‘small’ panel could increase the number of informative CSF biopsies compared to 50% MSK-IMPACT (Miller et al., 2019) (WP1)
  • assess whether a ‘large’ panel may be informative of the development of Tumor Mutational Burden (TMB) during alkylating chemotherapy (comparison with small panel to see if MMR mutations are always associated with elevated TMB) (WP2)
  • assess whether tumour plasma (EV) contains DNA and RNA and has mutations present in the CT-DNA of CSF (WP3)

Team

  • Pre-Clinical
  • Clinicians