When Breast Cancer Fights Back

We’ve all heard about the fight against breast cancer — but did you know that breast cancer fights back?
 
Breast cancer, the second leading cause of cancer deaths in women, is found in 1.3 million women throughout the world each year. Early detection and improved treatments have decreased death rates, but the American Cancer Society predicts that 40,910 Americans will die of breast cancer in 2009.

What makes breast cancer difficult to treat? Typically, doctors treat breast cancer through surgery to remove the tumor, followed by chemotherapy and radiation. But some cancers prove difficult to remove, others come back. And some tumors stop responding to chemotherapy drugs. When this happens, the cancer is said to have developed drug resistance.

Some cancer cells become drug resistant when they develop the ability to pump out drugs from their bodies. Other chemotherapy drugs target specific proteins within the cancer cell. In response, the cancer cells produce more of that protein. Chemotherapy drugs can destroy healthy tissue, so doctors are limited in the dosages that they can administer. The cancer cells produce more proteins than the chemotherapy drugs can target, allowing the cancer cells to overwhelm the body despite chemotherapy treatments.
 
But breaking-edge companies are developing new drugs that can treat resistant cancers and give patients new hope. For example, Cellceutix Corporation, a cancer and anti-inflammatory drug developer, has developed a unique technology called Kevetrin that targets growth signals in tumor cells as opposed to being toxic to all cells, which is the traditional chemotherapy treatment.

In the experiments, mice were implanted with human tumor cells known to be drug resistant. Kevetrin reduced tumor volume by 68 percent and delayed tumor growth by more than 62 percent, compared to controls.

“Kevetrin continues to demonstrate consistent success in fighting drug resistant cancers, the leading cause of chemotherapy failure,” says Mr. George Evans, CEO of Cellceutix. “We are optimistic that Kevetrin will continue to progress on the developmental pathway as a treatment for these very difficult cancers, providing hope to its patients.”

For more information about the Kevetrin experiment results, visit www.cellceutix.com.