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REVIEW article

Front. Oncol.
Sec. Neuro-Oncology and Neurosurgical Oncology
Volume 14 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fonc.2024.1389529
This article is part of the Research Topic Exploring CSF-Based Biomarkers for CNS Tumors View all articles

Monitoring Central Nervous System Tumour Metabolism Using Cerebrospinal Fluid

Provisionally accepted
Alison Whitby Alison Whitby 1Madhumita Dandapani Madhumita Dandapani 1,2*
  • 1 Children's Brain Tumour Research Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, England, United Kingdom
  • 2 Nottingham University Hospitals NHS Trust, Nottingham, United Kingdom

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Central nervous system (CNS) tumours are the most common cancer cause of death in under 40s in the UK, largely because they persist and recur and sometimes metastasise during treatment. Therefore, longitudinal monitoring of patients during and following treatment must be undertaken to understand the course of the disease and alter treatment plans reactively. This monitoring must be specific, sensitive, rapid, low cost, simple, and accepted by the patient. Cerebrospinal fluid (CSF) examination obtained following lumbar puncture, already a routine part of treatment in paediatric cases, could be better utilised with improved biomarkers. In this review, we discuss the potential for metabolites in the CSF to be used as biomarkers of CNS tumour remission, progression, response to drugs, recurrence and metastasis. We confer the clinical benefits and risks of this approach and conclude that there are many potential advantages over other tests and the required instrumentation is already present in UK hospitals. On the other hand, the approach needs more research investment to find more metabolite biomarkers, better understand their relation to the tumour, and validate those biomarkers in a standardised assay in order for the assay to become a clinical reality.

    Keywords: Cerebrospinal Fluid, Metabolomics, brain cancer, Recurrence, Monitoring, biomarkers CNS cancers Alzheimer's disease

    Received: 21 Feb 2024; Accepted: 19 Nov 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Whitby and Dandapani. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Madhumita Dandapani, Children's Brain Tumour Research Centre, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, NG7 2RD, England, United Kingdom

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.