The Evolution and Ecology of Resistance in Cancer Therapy.

ABSTRACT: Despite the continuous deployment of new treatment strategies and agents over many decades, most disseminated cancers remain fatal. Cancer cells, through their access to the vast information of the human genome, have a remarkable capacity to deploy adaptive strategies for even the most effective treatments. We note there are two critical steps in the clinical manifestation of treatment resistance. The first, which is widely investigated, requires molecular machinery necessary to eliminate the cytotoxic effect of the treatment. However, the emergence of a resistant phenotype is not in itself clinically significant. That is, resistant cells affect patient outcomes only when they succeed in the second step of resistance by proliferating into a sufficiently large population to allow tumor prog

SUBMITTER: Gatenby RA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7605238 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature