Book Description

Gliomas are neoplasms originating in glial cells, the most malignant and frequent primary tumors of the Central Nervous System (CNS), representing approximately 40-50% of all intracranial tumors. Following the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines, gliomas are classified into grades I-IV, regarding their malignancy degree. The latest report from WHO on CNS tumors considers that glioblastoma (GB), a grade IV adult-type diffuse glioma comprising isocitrate dehydrogenase (IDH)-wildtype tumors. Despite all efforts to improve patient survival and quality of life, the median survival remains lower due to the lack of effective diagnostic tools, poor prognosis, and limited therapeutic options. Regarding this, the design of novel treatment strategies is of the utmost importance. This can be by either the discovery of new medicines (for example synthetic compounds), repurposing known drugs or exploring novel strategies of drug delivery by nanotechnological platforms to improve treatment response and long-term survival of patients. Inter and intra-tumor heterogeneity mainly contribute to the poor prognosis and treatment efficacy. Therefore, exploiting tumor microenvironment (TME) and understanding GB’s cellular and molecular aspects are fundamental to developing more effective and better-tolerated personalized therapies. Thus, addressing physiological mechanisms involved in cancer development, progression and recurrence is crucial. Concerning this, our goal with this research topic is to share the latest advances in tumor-specific therapies for gliomas, especially GB, as well as to provide experimental validation of new bioactive molecules and their antitumor mechanism of action. Authors are invited to submit original research, review articles and systematic reviews covering, but not restricted to, the following topics: 1) Novel targeted therapies; 2) Mechanism of action and affected signaling pathways; 3) Repurposing drugs; 5) New chemical entities; 6) Pharmaceutical nanotechnology; 7) Drug delivery systems; 8) Preclinical and clinical studies of therapeutic molecules; 9) Potential molecular biomarkers to targeted therapies using proteomics or transcriptomics.