Protein might aid cancer treatments

U.S. medical scientists said tagging tumors that respond to chemotherapy might offer a way of rapidly determining a cancer treatment's effectiveness.

Vanderbilt University's Ingram Cancer Center researchers said the technique involves a small protein that, when tagged with a light-emitting molecule, can be used to visualize cancer response in mice two days after therapy is initiated.

Dr. Dennis Hallahan, a professor of cancer research, said the response to chemotherapy is currently determined by measuring changes in tumor size with imaging techniques.

It takes two to three months of cancer therapy before we can determine whether the therapy has been effective for a patient, said Hallahan. If we can get that answer within one to two days, we can switch that patient to an alternative regimen very quickly.

Such rapid assessment of tumor response is especially important now, Hallahan said, given recent advances in molecular targeted therapies. But we need the tools to make the decision to use an alternative therapy with the patient, he added.

The study is reported online ahead of print in the journal Nature Medicine.

Copyright 2008 by United Press International