Cancer cell growth method spurs hope for children

By Scott Haggett

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - A new technique for culturing cancer cells from a virulent form of brain cancer affecting children and infants may speed development of a treatment for the disease, researchers at the University of Calgary said on Wednesday.

The research team has developed a new method for growing cells of atypical teratoid/rhabdoid tumours (AT/RT), a rare cancer that affects infants and small children.

Although there are only 10 to 15 cases of the cancer annually in Canada, fewer than 10 percent of the children under three years of age who get it survive.

The new method of growing the cancer cells may increase their chances by helping find effective drugs for treatment.

"To do (drug) tests we need to have cancer cells in cultures," said Aru Narendran, a physician and researcher at the University of Calgary. "We take the cancer cells, add the targeted therapy (drug) agent and show whether it can kill or not kill."

Narendran said the AT/RT cells had proven particularly difficult to culture. That hurdle was overcome by adding a small amount of brain fluid to the petri dish used to grow them.

The fluid was obtained, with parental consent, from an infant suffering from AT/RT who subsequently died.

Before the discovery, the AT/RT cells had proven unusually difficult to culture, Narendran told reporters.