Bandar Alfaifi, PhD Student in our brain tumour theme and colleagues from the Manchester Centre for Clinical Neurosciences, part of Northern Care Alliance NHS Foundation Trust have published a paper in Neuro-Oncology Advances, showing the first in vivo evidence of increased TSPO expression and inflammation within the brains of patients with growing sporadic vestibular schwannomas. 

Non-auditory symptoms can be a prominent feature in patients with sporadic vestibular schwannoma (VS), but the cause of these symptoms is unknown. The team have demonstrated for the first time in vivo, using a dedicated PET tracer, that in patients with growing sporadic VS, there is widespread translocator protein (TSPO) upregulation within normal-appearing brain regions, indicative of microglial activation. They further demonstrated, through a voxel-wise cluster analysis, that this TSPO upregulation occurs within the non-auditory motor and premotor frontal lobe regions. This work provides an important possible pathophysiological explanation for the non-audio vestibular and neuropsychological symptoms experienced by patients with sporadic VS and a potential future therapeutic target (i.e. reversible inflammation) for these symptoms.

These results highlight the need for further studies interrogating the role of neuroinflammation in patients with VS and other extra-axial CNS tumours.

Read the paper here:  https://doi.org/10.1093/noajnl/vdae094

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