The old adage that 'prevention is better than cure' has not always been favoured in the cancer research community. In a Timeline article on page 508 Ann Bode and Zigang Dong cover the history of cancer prevention research, detailing the hits and misses that have shaped our view of this discipline. They conclude that although many have dismissed the goals of cancer prevention, we now have a better molecular understanding of cancer on which to base preventive therapies. Some prevention targets are obvious, such as stopping smoking. However, as discussed by Steven Hecht and colleagues on page 476, although smoking bans and other legislation have reduced the number of people who smoke in the developed world, around 25% of people are either unable or unwilling to quit. How do we help this population? Hecht argues that smokers, and those attempting to quit, should be offered a mixture of preventive agents that can limit the process of smoking-induced carcinogenesis.
Using a mixture of therapies not only enables several carcinogenic pathways to be targeted, it might also help to avoid the problem of drug resistance. The Review on page 463 by José Baselga and Sandra Swain is the first in a series of specially commissioned articles that examine different aspects of therapeutic resistance. Numerous culprits have been identified, including environmental adaptations to therapy, aberrant regulation of drug transporters and signalling feedback loops that bypass targeted therapies. The articles that make up our drug resistance series will discuss some of these challenges and suggest how they might be overcome.
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