Aim: Low grade glioma (LGG) is a lethal brain cancer with relatively poor prognosis in young adults. Thus, this study was performed to develop novel molecular biomarkers to effectively predict the prognosis of LGG patients and finally guide treatment decisions. Methods: survival-related genes were determined by Kaplan-Meier survival analysis and multivariate Cox regression analysis using the expression and clinical data of 506 LGG patients from The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database and independently validated in a Chinese Glioma Genome Atlas (CGGA) dataset. A prognostic risk score was established based on a linear combination of 10 gene expression levels using the regression coefficients of the multivariate Cox regression models. GSEA was performed to analyze the altered signaling pathways between the high and low risk groups stratified by median risk score. Results: We identified a total of 1489 genes significantly correlated with patients’ prognosis in LGG. The top 5 protective genes were DISP2, CKMT1B, AQP7, GPR162 and CHGB, the top 5 risk genes were SP1, EYA3, ZSCAN20, ITPRIPL1 and ZNF217 in LGG. The risk score was predictive of poor overall survival and relapse-free survival in LGG patients. Pathways of small cell lung cancer, pathways in cancer, chronic myeloid leukemia, colorectal cancer were the top 4 most enriched pathways in the high risk group. SP1, EYA3, ZSCAN20, ITPRIPL1, ZNF217 and GPR162 were significantly up-regulated, while DISP2, CKMT1B, AQP7 were down-regulated in 523 LGG tissues as compared to 1141 normal brain controls. Conclusions: The 10-gene signature may become novel prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers to considerably improve the prognostic prediction in LGG.

Intracranial cavernous angiomas (CAs) are hamartomatous vascular malformations consisting of thin-walled vascular channels located within the brain, but typically lacking intervening neural parenchyma, large feeding arteries, or draining veins. The CAs occurring in the ventricular system are rare, with an incidence of 2.5% to 10.3% of the intracranial CAs, and those arising from the trigone of the lateral ventricle are even rarer. Till now, there are <20 patients with trigonal CAs have been reported in the English literature. In this study, the authors describe an extremely rare case of multiple intracranial CAs with a trigonal CA mimicking glioma. Furthermore, they also discuss the characteristic aspects of symptoms, radiologic findings, diagnosis, and treatment of this benign lesion.

Gliomas are tumors of the central nervous system; they can be invasive and are commonly treated by surgical resection, chemo, and radiotherapy. Removal of a glioma is dangerous and not always successful. Temozolomide (TMZ), the first-line chemotherapy drug for gliomas, inhibit tumor recurrence, and metastasis to some extent. TMZ is often accompanied by side effects such as anemia, fever, constipation, and more. Here using a double-targeted Kunitz domain Angiopep-2 (ANG) modified block copolymer poly(lactic acid)-polyethylene glycol (PEG-PLA) coated with TMZ, we constructed a nano-delivery system (ANG@PLA-PEG/TMZ) that crosses the blood-brain barrier (BBB) to treat gliomas.