Researchers develop new method of eliminating unwanted damage

May 10, 2012 15:00 GMT  ·  By

At this time, chemotherapy is definitely the most effective way of dealing with cancers, but this course of treatment also causes massive damage to healthy tissue. Researchers now believe that inserting a mutated gene into the genome of cancer patients may help prevent this type of damage.

Benzylguanin, a drug used to make cancer cells easier to kill, tends to destroy blood and bone marrow cells easier as well, which makes the patient extremely susceptible to secondary infections. When this happens, chemotherapy needs to be interrupted, and the disease resumes its advance.

In the case of people suffering from an extremely ruthless form of cancer called glioblastoma, time is the enemy. About 50 percent of patients die within 13 months of diagnostic, and chemotherapy is the only thing that allows them to hang on to life. The overactive gene MGMT is protecting it, too.

By inserting a mutated version of MGMT, called P140K, into the patients, the body becomes able to endure the effects of both chemotherapy and benzylguanine more efficiently, Science Now reports.