HUMAN GLIOBLASTOMA STEM CELLS: CORRELATION WITH CLINICAL OUTCOME

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is the most common and malignant brain tumour with a very poor survival. Recently, glioma stem cells (GSCs) have been identified as the main cause of gliomas propagation or recurrence and a number of several cell markers have been indicated as putative GSC markers. Since in the literature there are poor information about the link between GBM biology and its clinical behaviour we have conducted a retrospective study to evaluate the prognostic potential of GSCs in our series of GBM. β-tubulin III, nestin, SOX-2, GFAP and CD133 markers were evaluated by flow cytometry analysis. Ki67 espression was evaluated by immunohistochemistry. Statistical analysis revealed that the generation of GSCs negatively affected clinical outcome. In particular, a very poor overall survival (OS) (p=0.000) and progression-free-survival (PFS) (p=0.000) were observed among patients whose tumors expressed Ki67 and showed the ability to generate in vitro GSCs. Therefore the analysis of GSCs may predict the survival of GBM patients. In vitro GSCs generation and the coexpression of GScs and Ki67 may be useful to identify patients at risk of disease progression.