Simple Two-Drug Combo May Inhibit Metastases

cp418

http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/884293

Simple Two-Drug Combo May Inhibit Metastases in Breast Cancer

hopefour

I am not a member of Medscape….is there any other way to read this article? Thank you again for all your posting of info cp418.

ksusan

A combination of a cyclooxygenase-2 (COX-2) inhibitor and a β-blocker given perioperatively has been shown to inhibit a range of tumor and circulating biomarkers associated with disease progression and metastases in early-stage breast cancer in the first clinical trial of its kind. The researchers hope that this will translate clinically to fewer metastases and cancer recurrences.

"The intervention is based on empirical findings," senior author, Shamgar Ben-Eliyahu, PhD, Tel Aviv University, Israel, explained to Medscape Medical News. The first is that "the perioperative period is really disproportionately significant in determining long-term cancer outcomes," and second, "during this period, there are strong stress and inflammatory responses that suppress immunity and directly impact the malignant tissue and its microenvironment, making them more prometastatic and inviting disease progression."

"So we treated patients with the combination of etodolac and propranolol beginning 5 days before surgery (and continued for 6 further days), and we found that treatment reduced the metastatic potential of the tissue and of the host," he said.

"Our hope is that, when we have a large enough sample, we will see more patients who don't develop metastatic disease down the line and who live without cancer recurrence," Dr Ben-Eliyahu added.

The research was published in the August issue of Clinical Cancer Research.

Important Trial

Asked by Medscape Medical News to comment on the study, Jonathan Hiller, MD, a clinical and research anesthetist at the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre in Victoria, Australia, said he felt that this study is an important trial and, excitingly, translates experimental findings in animals to measurable benefits in patients with breast cancer.

"In the trial, researchers used 2 commonly available and safe drugs together to achieve 2 important outcomes — reducing the metastatic potential of a breast cancer and reducing the inflammatory and immunosuppressive stress response of surgery," Dr Hiller said in an email.

"So this trial contributes to increasing research into the effects of inflammatory and immune changes occurring at the time of surgery and their effect on residual or dormant cancer cells," he added.

"And it suggests that a week of pre-operative dosing — 'a cancer pre-med' — may very well translate to a cancer benefit for patients," Dr Hiller concluded.

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