Medical & Clinical Research

Author(s): Daniel Benharroch, Yaakov Gopes

Primary adult glioblastoma is a malignant tumor of the neuroaxis, throughout which it will spread widely. The survival rate of the patients is inferior to 15 months. A poor outcome is related to drug resistance, as well as to the blood-brain-barrier permeability. A major mechanism of the drug impediment is based on an apoptotic blockade, but also, increasingly, of nonapoptotic cell death, the various forms of which may be manipulated to a level that may initiate some degree of improvement in the clinical features. But these molecules, for example, those responsible for autophagic or paraptotic cell death, have reacted so far by obscure processes that are just starting to be elucidated. The goal of this review is to display the diverse variants of cell death involved in glioblastoma and to highlight the relevance of molecules and processes to the mechanism and therapy of this malignancy. Moreover, attempts will be made to trace the data concerning the repair manipulations performed on the original defects inherent in this cancer.