Chemo Gene May Helps Cancer Survive
A gene thought to be crucial for chemotherapy to work may instead help cancer survive, US scientists fear.
The p53 gene’s job is to tell faulty cells to self destruct, and so experts assumed it helped in killing cancer cells that chemotherapy had injured.
But a trial at the Georgia Institute of Technology has found chemotherapy patients with normally functioning p53 fare worse than those with mutated p53.
This suggests p53 may help some cancers come back, PLoS ONE journal reports.
If this is the case, a new strategy for fighting cancer might be to develop drugs to disable the functioning of p53 in the tumours of patients undergoing chemotherapy.
Inhibiting p53 in tumours being treated with chemotherapy may substantially improve patients’ long-term survival.”
Filed under Health
