Image by Ed Uthman
Combining a cholesterol-lowering drug and a contraceptive steroid could be a safe, effective treatment for leukemias, lymphomas, and other malignancies, according to researchers.
Their work helps explain how this combination treatment, bezafibrate and medroxyprogesterone acetate (BaP), kills cancer cells.
The team discovered that BaP’s mechanism of action is the same in acute myeloid leukemia (AML) and Burkitt lymphoma (BL) cells.
The findings have been published in Cancer Research.
BaP has been shown to prolong survival in early stage trials of elderly AML patients, when compared to standard palliative care. BaP has also been used alongside chemotherapy to successfully treat children with BL.
However, it was unclear whether BaP’s activity against these 2 very different malignancies was mediated by a common mechanism or by different effects in each cancer.
To gain some insight, Andrew Southam, PhD, of the University of Birmingham in the UK, and his colleagues investigated the drugs’ effects on the metabolism and chemical make-up of AML and BL cells.
They found that, in both cell types, BaP blocks stearoyl CoA desaturase, an enzyme crucial to the production of fatty acids, which cancer cells need to grow and multiply. The team also showed that BaP’s ability to deactivate stearoyl CoA desaturase was what prompted the cancer cells to die.
“Developing drugs to target the fatty-acid building blocks of cancer cells has been a promising area of research in recent years,” Dr Southam said. “It is very exciting we have identified these non-toxic drugs already sitting on pharmacy shelves.”
He and his colleagues believe these findings also open up the possibility that BaP could be used to treat other cancers that rely on high levels of stearoyl CoA desaturase to grow, including chronic lymphocytic leukemia and some types of non-Hodgkin lymphoma, as well as prostate, colon, and esophageal cancers.
“This drug combination shows real promise,” said Chris Bunce, PhD, also of the University of Birmingham.
“Affordable, effective, non-toxic treatments that extend survival, while offering a good quality of life, are in demand for almost all types of cancer.”
