How brain tumors damage surrounding tissue

Brain tumors cause “solid stress” — a compression of nearby tissue that can kill cells and result in some of the symptoms patients with brain cancer exhibit. In a new study, researchers set out to find what types of tumors are more likely to cause solid stress and if it can be alleviated. By both imaging patients' brain tumors and investigating tumors in mice, they found that tumors that remain a mass cause more stress than tumors that snake out into healthy tissue. These “nodular” tumors were more likely to decrease the blood flow in neighboring vessels and damage nearby cells. The researchers also explored ways of relieving the compression and found that in mice, the drug lithium reduced the surrounding cellular damage the tumors caused.