Current Status of Cell Culture Drug Resistance
Testing (CCDRT)
1Larry M Weisenthal MD PhD and 2Peter Nygren MD
PhD
1Weisenthal Cancer Group, 15140 Transistor Lane, Huntington
Beach, CA 92649 and 2Departments of Clinical Pharmacology and
Oncology, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden
1mail@weisenthal.org;
2 PeterNygren@medsci.uu.se
Phone: 714-894-0011, Fax: 714-893-3658
Abstract
Cell culture drug resistance testing (CCDRT) is purported
to correlate with response to chemotherapy and/or with patient survival
after chemotherapy. Advocates of CCDRT maintain that this information is
of value in clinical drug selection, particularly in situations where there
is a choice to be made between more than one acceptable drug regimen. Assays
based on a cell proliferation or DNA synthesis endpoint were largely studied
in the early to mid-1980s and are currently advocated chiefly for the identification
of inactive drugs. Assays based on cell death as an endpoint were the subject
of increasing study during the late 1980s and throughout the 90s. An extensive,
diverse, and consistent literature documents the ability of cell death
assays to identify forms of chemotherapy which are associated with both
favorable and unfavorable prognoses. CCDRT should be much more widely utilized
in clinical oncology practice and as an integral component of ongoing and
future clinical trials.