Ovarian cancer discovery reveals treatment problems

Tuesday December 20th, 2011

British researchers have made a key discovery about why ovarian cancer can be hard to treat with drugs.

The commonest type of the cancer evolves at a "startling" rate, the researchers say.

This means that drug resistant cells can emerge rapidly, they report in The Journal of Pathology.

Platinum therapy can help 80 per cent of patients with the disease - but for most it is not a cure as the disease returns.

Some 6,500 women a year in Britain are diagnosed with the disease - and 70 per cent will have a "serious" high grade form of cancer.

The researchers at Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Research Institute studied drug resistant cancer cells and found they had evolved rapidly, acquiring "many" genetic mutations.

Researcher Dr James Brenton said: "In effect, drugs that would normally home in on and attack a distinct genetic weak spot in cells are now presented with a constantly changing target - so cancer cells become resistant to this treatment.

"Unravelling the secrets of how these ovarian cancer cells accumulate these genetic errors may allow scientists to target these vulnerabilities with new drugs. The next stage is to investigate if drugs can be developed to target these genetic faults."

Dr Julie Sharp, of Cancer Research UK, said: "This exciting research shines light onto why the most common type of ovarian cancer can become resistant to standard treatment - providing new avenues of research to benefit patients and ultimately increasing survival from this disease."

The role of tandem duplicator phenotype in tumour evolution in high-grade serious ovarian cancer. Ng et al. The Journal of Pathology December 19 2011

Tags: Cancer | Genetics | UK News | Women’s Health & Gynaecology

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