Similarly, drug-induced apoptosis in human breast cancer cells was abrogated by using EGFR antisense RNA (Dixit et al, 1997), suggesting that a critical level of EGFR signalling, which is amplified in some common cancers, may be necessary for DNA-damaging drug-mediated apoptosis in tumour cells and suggest an inhibitory effect of this pathway on the repair of cisplatin-damaged DNA. This evidence concerns the gene EGFR and cancer.