Researchers of the John Hobkins Oncology Center has discovered a genetic code which is likely to contain information on how different people with a cerebrum cancer react on chemotherapy. The discovery was published on November 9, 2000, and was based on a survey on 47 voluntary patients suffering from glioma (cerebrum swelling) who were undergoing a standard course of chemotherapy, being treated with a standard medicine - carmustine. The methyl-guanine-DNA methyltransferase (MGMT) gene of 19 patients was produced in a chemically- modified form; 12 out of the said 19 patients had much better response reaction on chemotherapy, including swelling regression and increase of life span. In the other group of 28 patients whose MGMT genes were not changed, only one person showed a positive reaction on chemotherapy. Patients with modified MGMT genes lived on average by 13 months longer, than other patients did.

MGMT genes were modified through a biochemical process known as a methilation. Scientists think that the so-called non-methilated MGMT genes repair damaged cells of the swelling and allow to avoid a damage caused by chemotherapy treatment, that, in turn, resulted in drop in treatment efficiency. If a MGMT gene is modified, the process of cells repair stops and drugs can directly impact cancer cells.

For the time being, scientists have been investigating drugs to completely block a MGMT gene and increase sensitiveness of swelling to carmustine. If the results are a success, then these researches will pave the way for a new cancer chemotherapy method based on an individual chemical profile of a swelling.

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