Isolation and Culture of Human Brain Tumor Cells

Sixty percent of all intracranial neoplasms are of glial origin. As a result of their infiltrative growth and heterogeneity, standard treatment (surgery, chemotherapy, and radiotherapy) is noncurative (2 ,2 ). Patient survival is poor and has not significantly improved over the past 20 years. It is a common belief in the neuro-oncology field that development of combination therapies for malignant brain tumors will be essential if improvement in survival is to occur (3 ,4 ). To test experimental single and multimodal therapies, animal and in vitro models of brain tumors are necessary.