Ricerc@Sapienza

Patients affected by glioblastoma often develop cerebral oedema as a life-threatening complication. Although there is no approved pharmacological intervention, such cerebral oedema is usually treated with dexamethasone. Dexamethasone has been shown in experimental studies to reduce cerebral oedema with only few mineralocorticoid side-effects. The goal of our study was to examine its efficacy in reducing the emergence of neurological deficits during the Stupp protocol.

In glioma, microglia and infiltrating macrophages are exposed to factors that force them to produce cytokines and chemokines, contributing to tumor growth and maintaining a pro-tumorigenic, immunosuppressed microenvironment. We demonstrate that housing glioma-bearing mice in enriched environment (EE) reverts the immunosuppressive phenotype of infiltrating myeloid cells, by modulating inflammatory gene expression. Under these conditions, branching and patrolling activity of myeloid cells is increased, and their phagocytic activity is promoted.