Question: Are there cancers that can become imune to the treament given to patients

Vicky Forster answered on 19 Nov 2013:

Hi Chazly,

Great question. Yes is unfortunately the answer – much like bacteria and viruses, cancer cells can mutate and become resistant to chemotherapy drugs. For example, for most patients with a type of leukaemia called CML – a drug called imatinib works, but for a few people with a special type of mutation in their DNA in the leukaemia cells – this means the imatinib doesen’t work at all. Luckily scientists have been able to design new versions of imatinib – which work for most of the resistant patients, but this is just one example. Unfortunately there are lots of types of therapy-resistant cancers. Unlike bacteria and viruses though, just because a cancer is therapy resistant, it doesen’t mean that this is more likely that anyone else can ‘catch’ it and for their cancer to be therapy resistant too. It’s just something that goes wrong with an individual’s DNA. You can’t pass it from person to person.