A diabetes drug treatment can slow down the growth of lung cancer cells and help them to get destroyed by radiotherapy.
A report in the British Journal of Cancer this week (30 April, 2013) by Canadian scientists says that metformin acts on the defence mechanisms that non-small cell lung cancers use to resist radiotherapy.
Lung cancer cells usually switch on survival mechanisms that make them resistant to radiotherapy treatment but researchers at McMaster University, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada, found that metformin reverses this effect in lung cancer cells grown in the lab and in mice, making them sensitive to radiotherapy.
Researchers used “real life” levels of the drug in their trials, similar to those already used for treating diabetes.
Dr Theodoros Tsakiridis, study author and a radiation oncologist at the Juravinski Cancer Centre and McMaster University, said that metformin strengthens the damage-detection signals that are sent within cancer cells in response to radiotherapy. These signals stop cancer cells from making the new proteins they need to grow rapidly and prevents them from making new cells.
“Our study shows that the diabetes drug metformin can stop lung cancer cells from growing and makes them more sensitive to treatment by radiotherapy,” explained Dr Tsakiridis.
“We’re now working with other institutions to develop a clinical trial that will investigate metformin in lung cancer patients treated with radiotherapy. If we can prove that this works in patients then we could have a potentially powerful weapon in the fight against the disease.”
Dr Kat Arney, science information manager at Cancer Research UK, said: “Lung cancer remains one of the most difficult cancers to treat, with less than 10 per cent of people surviving the disease for at least five years. We urgently need new and better ways of treating lung cancer and this research takes us a step towards making radiotherapy a more potent treatment.”
Storozhuk, Y. et al. Metformin inhibits growth and enhances radiation response of non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) through ATM and AMPK. British Journal of Cancer (2013). doi: 10.1038/bjc.2013.187
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