According to researchers, a new form of combination therapy could be more helpful in fighting against ovarian cancer. It has been found by UCLA researchers that combining chemotherapy with an experimental drug helps prevent cancer from recurring after treatment.

The research has been published in the journal Nature Communications. According to researcher Sanaz Memarzadeh, MD, a gynecologic cancer surgeon with the University of California-Los Angeles, this drug sensitizes cancer cells to the treatment called chemotherapy and leads to activation of programmed cell death.

Dr. Memarzadeh said that it has been found that these cells were similar to little time bombs, escaping the chemotherapy and then afterward leading to growth of tumor.

According to her, in the beginning, ovarian cancer usually is responsive to the chemotherapy drug carboplatin, however it normally returns following treatment. On the other hand, it was found by the UCLA researchers that some tumor cells that do not produce the protein CA125, a biomarker used for testing ovarian cancer, helps the cells resist the drug and live longer.

According to her, "We do a phenomenal job with surgery, peeling off as much of the tumor as we can see, and then we do standard chemotherapy, but the cancers still recur. I think our study helps explain why this happens". She added that if this combined treatment proves helpful, outcomes for this fatal disease could be improved and it is considered possible.

Memarzadeh and her team are looking forward to carry out a clinical trial of the paired therapy.