IDIBELL researcher Oriol Casanovas has published in the latest issue of Nature an article titled “Limitations of therapies exposed” where he highlights the need to know the limitations of antiangiogenic therapies to open doors to new combinations and therapeutic approaches that involve greater benefits for patients.

Specifically, Casanovas comments two recent publications which expose the limitations of certain treatments. On one hand, the combination of antiangiogenic therapy and chemotherapy, a widely used treatment but has a limitation: the antiangiogenic drug by slowing the growth of tumor blood vessels also prevents reaching chemotherapy. And on the other, the use of an antiangiogenic drug reduces breast tumors but does not abolish tumor stem cells that also increase in number, causing the tumor rest is more aggressive and of worse prognosis.

To Casanovas “it is clear that antiangiogenic therapies are effective but we must understand their limitations. That is the only way to look for new combinations, sequenced differently … or other innovations that may pose a greater benefit to the patient.”

Article`s reference

Oriol Casanovas. Limitations of Therapies exposed. Nature. Vol 484 (44-46). 5 April 2012