Li et al. (2013) studied the effects when combining adenovirus-mediated PTEN (AdVPTEN) gene therapy and cisplatin (one of the most common chemotherapy drugs) based (DDP) chemotherapy. After tests with nude mice bearing human small-cell lung cancer, data showed that AdVPTEN in combination with DDP chemotherapy repressed NCI-H446 tumor growth in vivo. In this study, it was also concluded that AdVPTEN gene therapy plus DDP chemotherapy reduced the microvessel density (MVD) of NCI-H446 tumors in human small-cell lung cancer. Chemotherapy remains the main procedure in the treatment of small-cell lung cancer. However, the efficiency of chemotherapy alone is decreasing as resistance is causing more relapse of cancer. Li et al. (2013) evaluated the beneficial effects of the combined use of AdVPTEN gene therapy and DDP chemotherapy. An area of interest for this study was to inhibit tumor angiogenesis, crucial in tumor development and growth. The tests in this study were conducted on NCI-H446 human small-cell lung cancer cells in vitro and in vivo in athymic nude mice. This new treatment method downregulated survivin but intensified tumor suppression in NCI-H446 SCLC cells (Li et al., …show more content…
Gene therapy is a risky procedure that is still in its earlier stages of development but is now often used to treat diseases that have ineffective methods. Gene therapy is now a popular area of research for lung cancer treatment as chemotherapy is not as effective and causes relapse in an increasing number of people. Many researchers are exploring new ways that gene therapy may help in cancer treatment. Sher et al. (2009) have developed a new system with enhanced survivin promoters to selectively kill lung cancer cells with little to no toxicity. Cramer et al. (2012) have investigated the use of suicide gene therapy. Suicide gene therapy makes cancer cells more vulnerable to chemotherapy. Cramer et al. (2013) arrived at the conclusion that NFkB-DTS nuclear-translocation increased the efficiency of cancer-targeted suicide gene therapy. Li et al. (2013) have explored gene therapy in conjunction with the standard chemotherapy. Li et al. (2013) investigated the antitumor efficacy when combining the use of adenovirus-mediated PTEN (AdVPTEN) gene therapy and cisplatin-based (DDP) chemotherapy. It is hopeful that in the near future many more clinical trials will be able to be released to suppress tumors, reduce the chance of relapse, and effectively kill lung cancer cells without harm to other body