Antisense Therapy May Enhance Effects Of Chemotherapy.(Brief Article)

2001 DEC 13 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- Antisense therapy shows promise in attacking two types of breast cancer and can enhance the effects of standard chemotherapy, according to a study from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Hybridon, Inc., of Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Their work was published in the November 2001 issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a scientific journal. Antisense therapy is a relatively new way of attacking cancer cells. The antisense approach involves a specific drug that inhibits the expression of a cancer-causing gene known as MDM2.

The MDM2 gene is overexpressed in several human cancers, including breast, lung and colon cancer. MDM2 wreaks its havoc by affecting the work of another gene, p53, which exists to regulate the growth of cells. Tumors are caused by the unregulated growth of cells. Antisense therapy controls the production of MDM2, allowing the p53 gene to slow or stop the growth of tumor cells.

The finding is of particular significance because it demonstrates that antisense works against two types of tumors that contain a wild-type or a mutant form of p53. Approximately half of all human cancers involve a wild-type p53 gene. Other tumors express a mutated strain of p53.

"Antisense is of particular value because you don't have to worry about p53 status, so ...