Background: Although clinically apparent systemic metastases of gliomas are very rare, reports of gliomas developing in recipient's transplanted organs have suggested that haematogenous spread might be more common.
Methods: This report describes a newly developed, sensitive real time quantitative reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction assay for the detection of mRNA encoding glial fibrillary acidic protein (GFAP). Blood from 10 patients with astrocytoma and 10 patients with glioblastoma was analysed.
Results: No GFAP mRNA was detected.
Conclusions: These results suggest that even subclinical metastases are very rare and are probably restricted to distinct subsets of glioma.