How tissue fluidity influences brain tumor progression

Significance Glioblastoma (GBM) is the most common and aggressive malignant brain tumor in adults, with one of the most dismal prognoses of all cancers. Yet, the reason why GBM grows so fast and aggressively is not understood. Our study provides an intriguingly simple explanation for the infiltrative behavior of GBM by looking at fluidity—a material property that quantifies the viscous behavior of biological tissues measured in vivo by magnetic resonance elastography. We show that fluidity of neurotumors is anomalous in that it decreases as water content increases, enabling GBM to infiltratively finger into normal surrounding brain matter. Fluidity might thus become an important target for cancer research and opens horizons for the diagnosis and treatment of cancer.