Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Stem Cell-Like Cancer Cells Resistant To Standard Therapy, Responsive To Targeted Therapy

Source: Journal of the National Cancer Institute
Date: April 30, 2008

Summary:

A comparison of breast cancer biopsies before and after treatment show that a subset of cells, which have stem cell-like properties, are resistant to standard chemotherapy. Tumors treated with lapatinib, which inhibits a pathway important for self-renewal, retained a smaller fraction of these tumorigenic cells after therapy.