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Personalised cancer treatments may result from a pilot trial designed to show how widely-used chemotherapy drugs work.
All the treatments depend on particles of the precious metal platinum binding to DNA in tumour cells and preventing their replication.
But the response can differ widely from patient to patient, with some able to tolerate significantly higher doses than others.
Research at Loughborough University’s Centre for Analytical Science is intended to show how molecular-level effects may provide biological measurements that predict treatment outcomes.
The year-long trial involving 30 patients with different cancers, including ovarian and bowel, will analyse how much of the drug is reaching its biological target, and will be followed by a larger-scale trial.
Cisplatin, the first platinum anti-cancer drug, began to be used in treatment in 1977. Recent research has resulted in oxaliplatin, marketed under the trade name Eloxatin.
Copyright Press Association 2009
