Head injuries quadruple risk of glioma, a type of brain tumor
A study has found that head injuries greatly increase the risk of developing brain tumors (brain cancer) later in life.
A research team at University College London (UCL) in the UK found that people who suffered head injuries in various accidents had a four-fold increased risk of developing glioma, a type of brain tumor, compared to those who did not. Previous studies have suggested an association between head injury and increased incidence of brain tumors, but the mechanisms and evidence are inconclusive.
Lead author of the study, Dr. Simona Farinello of the ULC Cancer Research Institute, said: “We have shown in mouse experiments that an accidental head injury can cause brain cancer by inducing brain tissue inflammation and altering cell behavior, resulting in genetic mutations.” Glioma is a brain tumor that mainly arises from neural stem cells. A more mature type of brain cell, such as astrocytes, was thought to be less tumor-causing, but recent studies have shown that astrocytes can reappear stem cell movement after being damaged.
Through experiments on mice, the research team investigated whether the brain could form tumors by producing astrocytes after trauma due to these characteristics. A substance that permanently marks astrocytes in young mice (experimental group) with brain damage in red was injected and the function of a specific gene (p53) was deleted. This gene plays an important role in suppressing various cancers. In the case of other young mice (control group), they were treated in the same way, but the specific gene was left undisturbed and observed. After aging the mice, it was found that the astrocytes of mice with head injuries caused much more inflammation in the brain, which could lead to brain tumors.
To confirm this, the research team analyzed the incidence of brain tumors in the electronic medical records of more than 20,000 people diagnosed with head injuries. As a result, patients with head injuries were four times more likely to develop brain tumors later than those without injuries. People’s lifetime risk of developing a brain tumor is less than 1%. The research team speculated that head injuries accelerated genetic mutations in that area with age, increasing inflammation and increasing the risk of brain tumors.
The results of this study (Injury primes mutation bearing astrocytes for dedifferentiation in later life) were published in the international journal ≪Current Biology≫ and introduced by ‘Eureka Alert’, a portal for the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
