Chapter 8 - Overcoming drug resistance in cervical cancer: Chemosensitizing agents and targeted therapies

Abstract

There are an estimated 13,800 new cases of cervical cancer that will be diagnosed in the United States in 2020 alone with an estimated number of deaths reaching up to 4290. Surgery, radiation therapy, and chemotherapy are well-established treatment options for cervical cancer. Cisplatin has long been a first-line chemotherapeutic agent, first used in the early 1970s for the treatment of advanced cervical cancer. As a result of long ubiquitous use of cisplatin in the past decades, drug resistance has presented with a new challenge in the treatment of cervical cancer. To overcome drug resistance and potentially develop novel therapies, understanding the drug resistance mechanisms is required. New therapies designed to circumvent resistance among these different mechanistic pathways include Salmonella typhimurium A1-R, erlotinib, and cyclin-dependent kinase inhibitors. This chapter is a discussion from the most up-to-date data on overcoming drug resistance in cervical cancer and their related mechanisms. The understanding of these pathways and the ability to create novel therapies to target them will optimistically allow for the overcoming of drug resistance.