Ovarian cancer causes more deaths in patients than any other cancer, mostly because doctors cannot prolong women’s lives after the cancer is diagnosed. Surgery and chemotherapy are the most common treatments to remove the cancer, but researchers have found that for some patients, cancerous cells can become resistant to chemotherapy. Researchers in Australia have found a possible cause as to why ovarian cancers often become resistant to treatment.
Researchers Dr. Prue Cowin and Dr. David Bowtell led the team that discovered a gene that seems to play a vital role in ovarian cancer tumors becoming resistant to chemotherapy.
Dr. Bowtell explained that “we were interested in identifying molecular changes that occurred in a tumor between the time when a woman was first treated with surgery and chemotherapy, and the time when the tumor recurred and eventually became resistant to chemotherapy.
The team conducted a study at the Peter Mac Cancer Center in Melbourne, Australia with 22 women suffering from HGSC ovarian cancer. They collected samples of the women’s tumors before and after they were treated with chemotherapy. The researchers discovered that genes within the ovarian cancer cells had changed drastically between the samples.
The most dramatic changes occurred in tumors that had initially responded well to chemotherapy but grew resistant to it over time. Typically these cells had reduced levels of a protein called LRP1B that prevents cancerous cells from growing.
Scientists led by Dr. Joanne Weidhaas at the Yale School of Medicine have potentially discovered a way to identify cancers that will become resistant to chemotherapy due to a specific gene mutation. Women with this mutation were three times more resistant to chemotherapy than women without it.
This discovery can help women decide whether or not they want to go forward with traditional chemotherapy or seek an alternative treatment method. If those with the mutation start with chemotherapy, it may worsen their prognosis, whereas surgery may prolong their life.
Ovarian cancer is not alone in resistance to chemotherapy.
Recent research has found that chemotherapy can actually boost cancer cell growth in many common cancers due to healthy cells lacking LRP1B proteins after chemo. These new discoveries will hopefully help us scientists discover better alternative cancer treatment methods.
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