A drug used within a regimen to take care of HIV also seems to kill cancer cells, experts from the U.S. National Cancer Institute record.
Based on this brand-new acquiring, the HIV protease inhibitor nelfinavir has been found in a phase I clinical trial to determine what might be the safest and most effective dose pertaining to cancer patients. This plan of finding brand-new uses for existing drugs could have a significant impact on dealing with cancer and additional diseases, the experts added.
"This could be a new method of finding cancer medicines and cut the time for getting them approved," said lead researcher Dr. Phillip A. Dennis. "Repositioning drugs that already are FDA-accepted could accelerate the development of new malignancy therapies."
The researchers hit upon the idea of testing nelfinavir and additional protease inhibitors as cancer medications, because these medicines block Akt, a protein needed for the development of many types of cancer, including non-little cell lung cancer.
The report is published in the Sept. 1 issue of Clinical Cancer Research.
In experiments with mice, Dennis' team tested six protease inhibitors in non-small cell lung cancer and about 60 individual cancer cell types from nine different kinds of malignant tissue.
At doses that are secure in HIV-infected patients, 3 of the drugs, nelfinavir, ritonavir and saquinavir, blocked growth of non-small cell lung tumor and every other cancers cell type tested, the experts found.
Nevertheless, nelfinavir was the very best of all the drugs tested. It caused tumor cells to self-destruct or become stressed to the point of dying, Dennis said.
Furthermore, nelfinavir inhibited the growth of both drug-delicate and drug-resistant breast cancer cells, indicating that it may be used to fight cancer cells that are resistant to common chemotherapy medications. Nelfinavir may also be able to overcome level of resistance to radiation, the experts reported.
Dennis noted that low doses of nelfinavir are found in treating HIV, and even at those low doses, the drug is effective against cancer. The current phase I trial will test higher doses to get the most effective dose with the fewest dangerous side effects, he said.
In the trial, patients already are receiving higher doses without apparent problem, Dennis said.
"If nelfinavir is tested effective in fighting tumor, it would, most likely, be utilized in combination with other cancer medications," Dennis said.
One expert thinks this locating could be an essential advance in malignancy treatment.
"If it is confirmed that the toxicity amounts are manageable in human beings, it will likely be a great factor," said Charles Saxe, a scientific program director at the American Cancer Society. "Being able to get these medications faster to patients by crossing over in one disease to another will likely be a huge help."
Saxe noted that nelfinavir's ability to fight malignancy in humans still must be proven. "But if they're right, and they can keep toxicity at sensible levels, plus they can show an impact at doses HIV patients can handle, that might be really fascinating," he said.
In various other cancer news, National Cancer Institute researchers report they have found an extract of your skin of muscadine grapes (MSKE) can cause prostate cancer cells to die without affecting normal cells, according to a written report in the Sept. 1 problem of Cancer Research.
The lead researcher noted this extract will not contain significant amounts of resveratrol, another grape skin component that has been linked to avoiding the growth of prostate cancer.
"These results show that MSKE may have potent anti-tumor actions in the lab that change from the effects of resveratrol. Further studies of MSKE will end up being necessary to determine if this extract has potential as a chemopreventive or therapeutic agent," Dr. Jeffrey E. Green, chief of the Transgenic Oncogenesis and Genomics Section at the Center for Cancer Study, said in a declaration.
And in various other HIV news, a study in the August issue of AIDS Patient Care and STDs, researchers found that one-fourth of HIV patients experience stigmatized by their doctors.
The majority of the patients who also felt that way were low-income minorities with poor access to care.
"Whether or not it is actual stigmatization can be hard to measure, because it's coming from the patients that we interviewed," lead researcher Janni J. Kinsler, from the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a statement. "The point is that these people believe that way, and that is bad more than enough, because they're less inclined to seek the care they need."
