Tumor Proliferative Rate and Response to Chemotherapy

Excerpt

One of the widely held ideas in oncology is that rapidly dividing tumors are sensitive to chemotherapy, whereas slowly growing tumors are resistant. This idea might have been fostered by the early success of chemotherapy in Burkitt lymphoma—perhaps the most rapidly proliferating human tumor. Also, the common "solid tumors" generally proliferate slowly and respond poorly to chemotherapy. However, another explanation for the same observations is that factors other than tumor growth rate determine sensitivity to chemotherapy but that some rapidly dividing tumors happen to be sensitive to chemotherapy. If the latter were true and because rapidly proliferating tumors might become