Gene Therapy in Gliomas

Gene therapy is an experimental technique that uses genes to treat or prevent disease. In gliomas different strategies have use: (1) release of suicide genes to produce cytotoxic compounds in the tumor and provoke tumor cell death, (2) oncolytic virotherapy, (3) release of tumor-suppressor genes, (4) immunomodulatory gene therapy, that stimulates an antitumoral immune response, and (5) the use of synthetic vector particles/nanoparticles to deliver genetic material thereby silencing genes essential to tumorigenesis. Several clinical trails have use gene therapy alone or with other therapies in gliomas, but at the time there is not any gene therapy approve for treatment or prevention in gliomas.