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The role of apoptosis in cancer development and treatment response

J Martin Brown1, Laura D Attardi

  • 1Division of Radiation and Cancer Biology, Department of Radiation Oncology, Stanford, California 94305, USA. mbrown@stanford.edu

Nature Reviews. Cancer
|March 2, 2005
PubMed

Insights

Cancer cells often disable programmed cell death (apoptosis) to survive and resist treatment. This suggests that other cell death pathways are crucial for effective cancer therapy.

Area of Science:

  • Oncology
  • Cell Biology
  • Cancer Research

Background:

  • Inactivation of programmed cell death (apoptosis) is a hallmark of cancer development.
  • Disabling apoptosis contributes to cancer treatment resistance.
  • Apoptosis is often not the primary cell death mechanism in tumors treated with common regimens.

Approach:

  • Investigating the role of apoptosis inactivation in cancer.
  • Analyzing cell death mechanisms in response to cancer therapies.
  • Exploring alternative cell death pathways in oncology.

Key Points:

  • Cancer's evasion of apoptosis is central to its development.
  • Inhibited apoptosis leads to treatment resistance in many tumors.
  • Alternative cell death mechanisms are implicated in therapeutic responses.

Conclusions:

  • Understanding apoptosis evasion is critical for cancer therapy.
  • Targeting alternative cell death pathways may overcome treatment resistance.
  • Further research into non-apoptotic cell death is needed for effective cancer treatment.

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