Recent Patents on Glioblastoma Signaling

Nervous system tumors include a wide variety of entities, classified according to histopathological features or their location within the CNS. The high grade gliomas - anaplastic astrocytoma (WHO grade III) and glioblastoma (WHO grade IV) – have a very poor prognosis and, despite intensive conventional therapy, the median survival rate for patients with GBM is approximately 1 year. Investigation on molecular level of glioblastoma cells revealed over activation in response to growth factors and subsequent activation of several signaling pathways such as EGFR-MAPK, PI-3K/Akt and Notch. In the last years, there were an increasing number of patents disclosing new molecular methods to diagnose, stratify or treat patients with glioblastoma, some of them being reviewed in the present article.