Glioblastoma, and CancerDialysis
Author: Sture Hobro
Glioblastoma multiforme is an aggressive brain tumor which may be a good alternative for a CancerDialysis trial. The median survival rate for GBMs when all cases are considered is 12-18 month with today’s treatment practice.
There are numerous animal in vivo studies that suggest that the ketogenic diet may influence the survival time of glioblastoma patients. To translate those findings to cancer patients is shown to be hard probably because compliance to the diet needed is poor.
Especially ketogenic diets seems to have its best option as an adjuvant treatment to treat severe cancers (as glioblastoma or pancreas cancer) together with existing cancer therapies. Ketogenic condition enforce the outcome from radio chemo and immune therapies.
To further reduce glutamine availability (as hashtagCancerDialysis will do) and glutamine metabolism seems to further reinforce this augmenting effect. Typically, glutamine reliance in cancer is increased when glucose is scarce.
Mukherjee et all showed in this excellent article from 2019 in Communications Biology that KD together with reduced glutamine metabolism through a glutaminolysis inhibitor (DON) can be an excellent tool to kill cancer in a mouse model of glioblastoma.
Se below, Fig 1f from Mukherjee, Therapeutic benefit of combining calorie-restricted ketogenic diet and glutamine targeting in late-stage experimental glioblastoma | Communications Biology (nature.com)
We suggest that CancerDialysis may create similar effects as KD and DON together by suddenly introducing low glucose, low glutamine levels and high ketone levels potentially more pronounced than ketogenic diets can provide.
