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A cancer therapy resistant to resistance

Nature volume 390, pages 335–336 (1997)Cite this article

The relentless growth of tumours depends on a good blood supply, and thus on subverting host mechanisms for making blood vessels. Attack on that process provides a promising route for treating cancer, but one that may take some years to reach clinical fruition.

Dozens of drugs are used to treat cancer and even more are currently in preclinical or early clinical development. Unfortunately, many factors conspire to limit their effectiveness, including problems of delivery and penetration1, and a modest degree of selectivity for the very cells they were designed to eradicate. But probably the most important — and certainly the most frustrating — of these limiting factors is drug resistance. Some cancers, such as prostate tumours and melanomas, are intrinsically resistant to most anti-tumour drugs. Others, ovarian carcinoma or small-cell lung cancer for example, respond to chemotherapy and often disappear altogether, only to return later as drug-resistant tumours. This is acquired drug resistance, and it is encountered in about 30 per cent of all cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy2.

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Figure 1: Anti-tumour drugs induce drug resistance in many tumours whereas angiogenesis inhibitors do not.

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  1. the University of Toronto, and in the Cancer Research Program, Sunnybrook Health Science Centre, Research Building S-218, 2075 Bayview Avenue, Toronto, M4N 3M5, Ontario, Canada

    Robert S. Kerbel

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  1. Robert S. Kerbel
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Kerbel, R. A cancer therapy resistant to resistance. Nature 390, 335–336 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1038/36978

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