Aishwarya Vaidya
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Written By: Aishwarya Vaidya | Published : October 10, 2018 3:51 PM IST
This drug may help to treat triple negative breast cancer. © Shutterstock
Anti-psychotic drugs have anti-cancer properties, with some, albeit inconclusive, studies showing a reduced incidence of cancer in people with schizophrenia. The new research published in Oncotarget, is the first one to identify how one of these drugs acts against triple negative breast cancer.
Reportedly, according to the lead researcher, triple negative breast cancer has lower survival rates and increased risk of recurrence and only limited targeted treatments are available for it. but, as per the research, pimozide can fill this gap potentially. The drug is in the clinical use and will soon move to clinical trials.
Pimozide was tested the laboratory on triple negative breast cancer cells, non-small cell lung cancer cells and normal breast cells by the researchers of the University of Bradford, Queen's University Belfast and the University of Salamanca. They found that highest dosage used, up to 90 per cent of the cancer cells died following treatment with the drug.
It was tested on mice implanted with triple negative breast cancer. Tumours in mice who were treated with Pimozide were 65 per cent smaller than in untreated mice and. You will alos be shocked to know that the number of tumours reduced by up to 61 per cent.
The drug used in the research wasn't chosen at random. Reportedly, the previous research by Professor El-Tanani has shown that a protein, called Ran-GTP, plays a significant role in enabling the growth and spread of a number of cancers along with triple negative breast cancer.
Pimozide came top of the table, When Professor El-Tanani mapped thousands of existing drugs against this protein, to identify which would be most effective in blocking Ran-GTP. Reportedly, the study conducted by him found that, along with reducing proliferation of triple negative breast cancer cells and increasing the percentage of cells that died, the drug reduced the migration and invasion of cancer cells.
