Malaria Drug Could Be Used To Treat Breast Cancer
Researchers at Georgetown University have found that an anti-malaria drug can be used to treat Tamoxifen resistant breast cancer. The drug, hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), is cheap and commonly used to treat malaria. When HCQ is used to treat Tamoxifen resistant breast cancer in combination with the Tamoxifen drug, the breast cancer’s resistance to Tamoxifen is reversed. The results of the research were published in the June edition of Clinical Cancer Research.
Robert Clarke, PhD, DSc, Dean for Research at Georgetown University’s Medical Center and the study’s senior investigator, said that the results of the study showed a new potential treatment option for breast cancer patients. “Tamoxifen resistance when treating breast cancer is a big issue in the clinic, and we believe our findings provide a very promising fix to the problem,” said Clarke. He went on to say that the inexpensive nature and safety of both drugs will allow for easier access and treatment.
The Georgetown study was conducted in a mouse model. The researchers inserted cancerous tumors into mice with serious postmenopausal estrogen receptor-positive breast cancer. This form of breast cancer is one of the most common and is usually treated with the Tamoxifen drug. This can become problematic because nearly half of patients treated with Tamoxifen become resistant to it or do not respond to the treatment. The research conducted at Georgetown indicates that those patients could potentially still be treated with Tamoxifen instead of higher priced drugs or treatments that are difficult to maintain.
The researchers indicated that, while it is too early to draw any long term conclusions from their research, they are optimistic that HCQ allowed mice with Tamoxifen resistant breast cancer to continue Tamoxifen treatment. The next step for the team is to begin the study in human patients.