SEATTLE – A team of researchers led by Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center has identified a new mechanism that explains why some recurrent ovarian tumors become resistant to treatment with commonly used platinum-based chemotherapy drugs such as cisplatin and carboplatin. They describe their research online Feb. 10 in the journal Nature. While these findings are based on the study of ovarian-cancer cells from women with inherited mutations in the BRCA2 gene, they also may help explain the mechanics of cisplatin resistance in ovarian-cancer patients with BRCA1-gene mutations. Together such genetic mistakes are thought to cause about 10 percent of ovarian cancers, according to senior author Toshiyasu (Toshi) Taniguchi, M.D., Ph.D.
