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Chemotherapy may cause cancer cells to become resistant to drugs
Last reviewed: 01.07.2025
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Chemotherapy used to treat cancer may make cancer cells more resistant to drugs. According to scientists in an article published in the journal Nature Medicine, it was noted that the treatment becomes less effective over time, especially when patients become ill again.
The researchers explain this by the fact that during chemotherapy, healthy cells surrounding the tumor begin to produce a protein that cancer cells use to protect themselves. According to Fran Balkwill, an expert from the Cancer Research UK research center, scientists intend to study this side effect in order to subsequently block the tumor's protective mechanism. "It turned out that healthy cells surrounding the tumor can help cancer cells by supplying them with the necessary materials," says Balkwill.
The use of chemotherapy may therefore be reconsidered if this dual effect is confirmed. Studies have already confirmed that in approximately 90% of patients, the affected cells develop the ability to resist the drugs during treatment.
Attention to healthy tissues
Usually, during treatment, there are breaks in taking medications so that the body can recover. As it turns out, cancer cells also take advantage of this, developing the necessary resistance to drugs.
As reported by researchers from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle, chemotherapy damages the DNA of cells in the tissues surrounding the tumor, and they begin to produce 30 times more protein WNT16B, which subsequently helps cancer resist drugs. And if earlier scientists took into account only the cancer cells themselves, now it is clear that it is necessary to take into account the tissues surrounding the tumor.
The head of the American research group, Peter Nelson, emphasizes that it was previously known that proteins help cancer tumors develop. But only now has it become clear that this is how the tumor protects itself from treatment. "Our study shows that the tumor's environment can also influence the decision on how to structure treatment," the scientist emphasizes. Fran Balquin from Cancer Research UK believes that we now need to learn how to properly stimulate healthy cells so that they do not help the disease, but destroy it.
Oncological diseases can affect any part of the human body. A characteristic feature of this group of diseases is the rapid formation of abnormal cells that grow beyond their normal boundaries and are capable of penetrating into the tissues surrounding the affected area and forming metastases, spreading to other organs.
And if healthy cells die after a certain number of divisions, then a cancer cell continues to divide an infinite number of times.
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