Darwinian chemo

 

Preventing drug resistance to PARP inhibition in ovarian cancer through novel dosing regimens based on cancer evolutionary dynamics

https://tinyurl.com/yymjfer6

 

         The historical use of chemotherapy has been an attempt at elimination, looking to cure. However, for many tumours including ovarian cancer there is high recurrence rate often associated with resistance to the first-line drug therapy.

         The development of drug resistant cancer may be an evolutionary process with survival of the fittest, being the evolution of a cancer clone to resist chemo. This preliminary report of an on-going PhD project addresses the issue of resistance to PARP inhibition.

         Evolutionary dynamic theory aims to control rather than eliminate cancer, the idea being that stop-start intermittent treatment will prolong the effectiveness of the enzyme inhibition, which is the mechanism of PARPi maintenance, thereby delaying cancer recurrence.