Pancreatic cancer drug ready for clinical trials
Scientists have come close to creating a new drug for pancreatic cancer
sci-lib based on ScienceDaily: Novel drug cocktail may improve clinical treatment for pancreatic cancerPancreatic cancer ranks fourth in the list of oncological diseases from which US citizens most often die.
The survival rate for this disease is the lowest – about 6%. If new effective methods of combating the disease are not created, then it can be assumed that by 2015 it will take second place in the above-mentioned list. Surgical removal of the tumor gives the highest chances of survival. However, only 15% of patients can count on some kind of recovery, since the disease is usually detected in the last stages of development. Currently, there is an urgent need for effective means of combating malignant neoplasms of the pancreas.
Today, specialists of the Center for the Study of the Heart of the Medical Faculty of the University of Virginia Commonwealth University (Pauley Heart Center at Virginia Commonwealth University's School of Medicine) are working on the creation of an effective remedy for pancreatic cancer. Traditional chemotherapeutic agent (doxorubicin, DOX) it has long been used to fight various types of cancer. However, the body of patients usually often acquires resistance to DOX. This is due to increased activation of specific protein molecules, increased expression of drug transporters that reduce the level of the drug compound in the cell. This is especially pronounced in the case of pancreatic cancer. The disease does not respond to multiple treatment strategies, including those that use DOX. The current study is aimed at creating methods of influencing the mechanisms that cause the body's resistance to drugs. It is assumed that these methods could restore DOX sensitivity to malignant cells and, thus, help the patients' body to resist the disease.
David Durrant, the author of the current study, an employee of the laboratory of Dr. Rakesh Kukreja, used cells of a malignant neoplasm of the pancreas to evaluate the effectiveness of the combined use of DOX with a compound that inhibits proteins involved in the development of resistance to DOX. It's about BEZ235 (BEZ). The results obtained showed that the use of DOX together with BEZ leads to a significant decrease in the survival rate of cells of malignant neoplasm of the pancreas (compared with malignant cells that were affected by only one drug). The amount of DNA damage increased, apoptosis increased. More interestingly, the combined use of BEZ and DOX led to a higher accumulation of DOX in malignant cells. These results show the dual function of BEZ: on the one hand, this compound suppresses the work of proteins involved in the formation of drug resistance, on the other, drug export, allowing DOX to remain in cells. The effect of the combined use of these drugs has been tested not only in vitro, but also in vivo. Treatment of mice that carried xenografts of pancreatic tumors with BEZ and DOX suppressed tumor growth.
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