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news.A team of Cancer Research UK scientists have identified the tumors that are more likely to become drug resistant to develop personalized bowel cancer treatment.
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Two classes of bowel cancer cells grown in the lab were treated with around 250 compounds including common chemotherapy drugs used in bowel cancer and newer ‘targeted’ drugs which block specific faults in cancer cells.
The scientists found that one group of chromosomally unstable (CIN) bowel cancer cells produced due to faults in cell division can create more or less than the standard 46 chromosomes in daughter cells.
Cells in the other group had a stable set of 46 chromosomes.
Chromosomally unstable bowel cancer cells were found to be significantly more resistant to a large number of chemotherapy treatments and targeted drugs than cells with a stable chromosome number.
Cancer Research UK London head of Translational Cancer Therapeutics and lead author of the study Charles Swanton said treating patients based on whether or not their cancers are chromosomally unstable would be a step towards the personalised management of the disease.
Almost 40 drugs, including the chemotherapy family of drugs to which Fluorouracil belongs, were found to be more likely to kill bowel cancer cells containing stable chromosomes than their chromosomally unstable counterparts.
None of the drugs demonstrated effectiveness in chromosomally unstable bowel cancer cells.