How is gene transfection able to improve current chemotherapy? The role of combined therapy in cancer treatment.
2012
Despite advances in cancer treatment, a large number of patients eventually develop metastatic disease that is generally
incurable. Systemic chemotherapy remains the standard treatment for these patients. Several chemotherapeutic combinations have proven
effective in the management of cancer. Paradoxically, although the purpose of polychemotherapy is to improve the prognosis and prolong
the survival of patients, it often carries considerable toxicity that causes substantial adverse symptoms. For this reason, a major goal of
cancer research is to improve the effectiveness of these cytotoxic agents and reduce their adverse effects. Gene transfer has been
proposed as a new strategy to enhance the efficacy of anti-tumor drugs in the treatment of intractable or metastatic cancers. In fact, the
association of gene therapy and drugs (combined therapy) has been reported to increase the anti-proliferative effect of classical treatments
in lung, bladder, pancreatic, colorectal and breast cancers, among others. Various especially promising therapies have been proposed in
this context, including the use of suicide genes, antisense oligonucleotides, ribozymes and RNA interference. In this chapter, we review
recent progress in the development of novel anti-cancer strategies that associate cytotoxic agents with gene transfer to enhance their antitumor
effect.
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