Cisplatin form of a chemotherapy drug seems to be helpful in treating various types of cancer. But some patients with ovarian cancer probably develop resistance to it. A groundbreaking research claims to have introduced molecular imaging technique which aids in early assessment of treatment response for cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer. This technique is probably loaded with immense capacity for measuring therapy effects long before alterations in the tumor size and shape are identified.
Gauging response to therapy as quickly as possible is extremely necessary because ineffective therapies can be immediately discontinued. Patients unable for responding to a particular therapy supposedly suffer from unnecessary side effects. Such patients can be given more effective treatments by utilizing the novel molecular imaging technique. Cisplatin may be an effective treatment against ovarian cancer, but tumors can become resistant and grow again. So such patients can be subjected to second-line therapies. Cisplatin resistance can be apparently avoided by targeting the mammalian target of rapamycin (mTOR) pathway.
Marijke De Saint-Hubert, medical scientist in the Department of Nuclear Medicine at the University Hospital Gasthuisberg, Leuven, Belgium, and colleagues aimed to analyze the capability of 18F-FLT, a PET probe for cell proliferation. Understanding the ability of 18F-FLT can probably help anticipate early response to everolimus (an mTOR inhibitor). The research was initiated on a mouse model of subcutaneously transplanted human cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer. The outcome was that 18F-FLT PET was able to predict early response to mTOR inhibition in a mice with cisplatin-resistant ovarian cancer. It was concluded that the technique has potential for being included as a therapeutic assessment in humans for evaluating the effectiveness immediately after treatment initiation.
The research is published in the October issue of The Journal of Nuclear Medicine (JNM).