Cancer therapy at the crossroads: which direction for the future?

Magnetic resonance spectroscopy has revealed that cell death in tumors undergoing therapy may follow either from auto-oxidative cellular injury (ACI) or from programmed cell death (apoptosis), depending on the particular form of treatment employed and on its intensity. This short review argues not only in favor of ACI as the preferred mode of cell death, but also for a better understanding of the relationship between the nature of the changes stressed cells undergo and patterns of drug resistance accompanying survival if therapy is to become more successful.