After her brain cancer became resistant to chemotherapy and then to targeted treatments, 26-year-old Lisa Rosendahl's doctors gave her only a few months to live. Now a paper published January 17 in the journal eLife describes a new drug combination that has stabilized Rosendahl's disease and increased both the quantity and quality of her life: Adding the anti-malaria drug chloroquine to her treatment stopped an essential process that Rosendahl's cancer cells had been using to resist therapy, re-sensitizing her cancer to the targeted treatment that had previously stopped working. Along with Rosendahl, two other brain cancer patients were treated with the combination and both showed similar, dramatic improvement.
Jan. 17 (UPI) -- Doctors at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus in Aurora, Colo., have been successful in treating a 26-year-old brain cancer patient who had become resistant to chemotherapy and other treatments with the malaria drug chloroquine. The patient, Lisa Rosendahl, was diagnosed at the age of 21 with an aggressive form of glioblastoma and her cancer had become resistant to chemotherapy and targeted treatments. Doctors had given her just a few months to live. Rosendahl was treated with a new drug combination that included the anti-malaria drug chloroquine. By adding this to her treatment, the chloroquine stopped an essential process her cancer cells had been using to resist
