Published in: Cancer Drug Resistance
Authors:
University of Maryland and Modulight have published together a new research study about the mechanisms of cancer drug resistance. Drug resistance is a leading cause of treatment failure and often has dramatic consequences for survival of cancer patients. Cancer cells have developed various ways to protect themselves from drugs. When several clinically used photoactive drugs were studied, it was shown that some of them were being actively pumped out by cancer cells, thus likely limiting the full therapeutic potential of these drugs. Blocking cancer cell pumps led to increased accumulation of the drugs inside the cancer cells. These results pave way to further understanding and subsequently addressing cancer resistance mechanisms, potentially leading to improved and prolonged effectiveness of these photoactivated drugs in the future.
