One of the defense mechanisms of cancer cells is triggered by chance: their response to chemotherapy is in some cases driven by chance and being able to block this behavior could help develop more effective therapies. This is indicated by the research published in the journal Science Advances and conducted by the Australian Institute of Medical Research Garvan, with the group of David Croucher.
The study analyzed in particular the response of glioblastoma tumor cells in which it is known that about 15% of patients do not respond to treatments and in which it is generally observed that the response to treatments is ‘clear’, i.e. either it works or it does not work. Analyzing the responses of these tumor cells to treatments, the researchers observed a random intrinsic ‘noise’ in the mechanisms that then lead to the activation of the response to chemotherapy.
“Our results suggest that genetics does not take everything into account – said Latham – as the response to drugs can also be determined by other mechanisms that we must learn to better take into consideration”. In fact, the data indicate that once neuroblastoma cells enter a state of resistance to the drug, it is no longer possible to bypass their defences.
According to the authors of the research, a way should be found to insert and block the defense mechanisms that act randomly even before the tumor cell triggers them. A strategy that should be pursued already in the early stages of treatments, simultaneously with the administration of chemotherapy, doing so after the cells have activated their defenses would be useless. But doing so, the researchers themselves underline, should involve a distortion of current protocols, according to which new treatments can only be tested when the already known options have run out.
Source: Ansa
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