• Question: Can cancer cell become resistant to chemotherapy and other treatments?

    Asked by Isabel FV to Max, Francis on 13 Mar 2018. This question was also asked by skyler and ben.
    • Photo: Max Jamilly

      Max Jamilly answered on 13 Mar 2018:

      Hey Isabel! Good question. Yes, cancers can definitely become resistant to therapy. It’s a big problem in cancer treatment. The cells in a tumour aren’t all identical – they evolve over time and have a lot of genetic variation. Even old-fashioned chemotherapy drugs (which have very broad effects) will not be as effective on some cells as on others due to the genetic mutations that they contain.

      One of the best solutions to drug resistance is to use combination therapies, which kill tumours from several angles all at once.

    • Photo: Francis Man

      Francis Man answered on 15 Mar 2018:

      Max gave an excellent answer. The thing with cancer cells is that they grow faster than normal cells, with fewer controls. They can quite easily develop ways of resisting to drug, for example by making a protein called Pgp1, which pumps drugs out of the cell quite efficiently.

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