Angiogenesis and apoptosis in glioma:: Two arenas for promising new therapies

New therapies for gliomas are urgently needed in view of the very marginal increase in patient survival that has been achieved over the past two decades, which is only somewhat mitigated by improvements in quality of life. Two relatively recent fields of research that hold out great promise in this area, are angiogenesis and apoptosis. Depriving growing tumors of the blood supply they need, or tipping the balance in the cancer cell towards cell death, both provide conceptually elegant approaches to therapy, with the hope of great efficacy and little toxicity. However, attempts at successfully translating exciting laboratory findings to the clinic have been slowed by the complexity of the underlying biology. In this article we examine some of the issues that have impeded progress, and examine the potential role that integrins may play as targets, with a role in both angiogenesis and apoptosis.