Exploring Adaptive Drug Resistance in Melanoma
Helmut Schaider, MD, associate professor, Dermatology Research Centre, The University of Queensland, Australia, discusses drug resistance in melanoma.<br />
Helmut Schaider, MD, associate professor, Dermatology Research Centre, The University of Queensland, Australia, discusses drug resistance in melanoma.
Adaptive drug resistance occurs in the first 4 to 6 weeks when patients initially start treatment, Schaider explains. Recently, a new model has shown in an in vitro system that if you treat highly proliferative parental cells with a drug, they are slow cycling. The transition from slow-cycling cells to permanently resistant cells has not been looked at in the past.
Recent research has shown that these cells form colonies and start proliferating again. They then form a permanent resistance to the drug to which they were initially exposed.
