Medical Faculty, University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany.
Int J Med Sci. 2011 Mar 23;8(3):245-53. doi: 10.7150/ijms.8.245.
Drug resistance is the main cause of the failure of chemotherapy of malignant tumors, resistance being either preexisting (intrinsic resistance) or induced by the drugs (acquired resistance). At present, resistance is usually diagnosed during treatment after a long period of drug administration.In the present paper, methods for a rapid assessment of drug resistance are described. Three main classes of test procedures can be found in the literature, i.e. fresh tumor cell culture tests, cancer biomarker tests and positron emission tomography (PET) tests. The methods are based on the evaluation of molecular processes, i.e. metabolic activities of cancer cells. Drug resistance can be diagnosed before treatment in-vitro with fresh tumor cell culture tests, and after a short time of treatment in-vivo with PET tests. Cancer biomarker tests, for which great potential has been predicted, are largely still in the development stage. Individual resistance surveillance with tests delivering rapid results signifies progress in cancer therapy management, by providing the possibility to avoid drug therapies that are ineffective and only harmful.
耐药性是恶性肿瘤化疗失败的主要原因，耐药性要么是预先存在的（固有耐药性），要么是由药物诱导的（获得性耐药性）。目前，耐药性通常是在长期药物治疗后在治疗过程中诊断的。本文描述了一种快速评估耐药性的方法。文献中可以发现三种主要类型的测试程序，即新鲜肿瘤细胞培养测试、癌症生物标志物测试和正电子发射断层扫描（PET）测试。这些方法基于对分子过程的评估，即癌细胞的代谢活性。在体外，新鲜肿瘤细胞培养测试可以在治疗前诊断耐药性，在体内治疗后短时间内进行 PET 测试。癌症生物标志物测试具有很大的潜力，目前仍处于开发阶段。具有快速结果的测试进行个体耐药性监测，通过提供避免无效和有害的药物治疗的可能性，标志着癌症治疗管理的进步。
