UK researchers are investigating the use of drugs commonly used for breast cancer to treat drug-resistant lung cancer.
Results of studies involving laboratory mice were reported last night.
Professor Julian Downward from the Francis Crick Institute and the Institute of Cancer Research, London, UK, and colleagues examined drugs that block a protein called p110a. This protein is part of a family of proteins involved in cellular functions such as cell growth, proliferation, differentiation and movement.
The researchers were particularly interested in the interactions between p110a and the EGFR gene, which is mutated in some cancers, causing uncontrolled cell growth.
They tested genetically modified mice and found that lung tumours caused by mutations in EGFR "shrank significantly" when p110a was blocked, with very few side effects.
Details appeared yesterday (26 December) in Cell Reports. The authors report that p110a inhibitors are already being tested in breast cancer trials, so could be approved soon.
Professor Downward says: "At the moment, patients with EGFR-mutant lung cancers are given targeted treatments that are very effective for the first few years.
These drugs are improving, but unfortunately after a couple of years the cancer usually becomes resistant and starts to grow and spread again. The second line of treatment is currently conventional chemotherapy, which is not targeted and has substantial side-effects.
"Our new study suggests that it would be worth investigating whether p110a inhibitors could be used as a second-line therapy. As our research is at such an early stage, more research in mice and patient cells would be needed before even considering clinical trials, but it opens up a promising avenue of investigation."
Downward, J. et al. Cell Reports 26 December 2018
Leave a Reply