Stem cell therapy of malignant brain tumors: reality and prospects

Modern methods for the treatment of malignant brain tumors are insufficiently effective. One reason for this is that the existing technologies and methods are focused on removing all neoplastic cellsfrom the body. Understanding the mechanisms of systemic migration of stem cells provides a new view on the role of this phenomenon in the development of malignant tumors. Migration and homing of normal stem cells, being originally the regulatory process, ensuring revascularization and remodeling of ischemic or traumatic injury of brain, play a role of the axial conductor of neoplastic process in carcinogenesis. The use of the phenomenon of migration and homing of stem cells in the tumor center for therapeutic purposes opens the possibility of overcoming the blood-brain barrier, reducing the toxicity of chemotherapy and increasing the radiation therapy efficiency, makes possible the directed influence on the hypoxic zone of the tumor, can directly affect to the key life processes of tumor stem cells. These arguments allow to consider the mechanisms of systemic migration and homing of stem cells to neoplastic foci as a fundamental theoretical platform for the creation of a fundamentally new class of anti-cancer, cell personalized medicines.