The objective of this research was to determine if any of the new platinum and palladium compounds synthesized by the Dr. Granger research team would kill cancer cells that are resistant to cisplatin or multiple drugs in addition to killing cells that are not resistant. Background Cancer remains an elusive disease for doctors in many cases, and a frightening diagnosis for patients. Two characteristics shared by all cancers are uncontrolled growth and invasiveness to other parts of the body. While surgery and radiation are ideally used for isolated tumors whose cells have not spread throughout the body, cancer that has spread into other parts of the body is usually treated with one or more of the other three options. One widely used chemotherapeutic agent is cisplatin, especially for testicular, bladder, germ cell, head and neck, small cell lung cancer, and ovarian cancer.
Ovarian cancer is one of the four leading causes of death among women in the United States.
Over 80 percent of patients with ovarian cancer relapse after the first treatment, and a majority of these develop resistance to the chemotherapy. It is the limiting factor in chemotherapy treatment of ovarian cancer. Intrinsic resistance occurs when cells are not affected by the drug the very first time they come in contact with it. Cross resistance occurs when cells that are resistant to one drug are also resistant to another drug, usually because of some similarity between the drugs. Although it is still unknown how much each of these reasons is responsible, it does seem that there is usually a combination of two or more reasons.