‘Wonder drug’ that can kill all types of cancer?
A universal drug against all cancers may be on the anvil, say British scientists who claim to have discovered a method of turning a breast cancer “wonder pill” effective against all types of tumour.
In addition, side-effects such as nausea and tiredness should be minimal, according to a team at Newcastle University which is leading the research.
The excitement centres on a family of cancer drugs known as PARP inhibitors, which affect the way tumour cells repair themselves.
These target hereditary forms of breast cancer, as well as ovarian prostate cancers and pancreatic tumours with the same rogue gene, say the scientists.
The drugs are of particular interest to doctors as they zero in on the tumour and kill it without harming healthy cells. This means patients suffer fewer side effects than they would with chemotherapy or radiotherapy in which healthy cells are affected.
The drugs exploit the “Achilles’ heel” of hereditary forms of breast cancer caused by a flaw in a gene called BRCA1 which limits the cells’ ability to repair damage to their DNA, say the scientists.
Healthy cells have two ways of patching up damage — which allows them to breed, grow and spread — but cells in BRCA tumours have only one.
PARP inhibitors block this remaining pathway, stopping the tumour cells from multiplying, eventually leading them to die. Some breast, ovarian and prostate tumours too have flawed BRCA genes, but account for a small proportion of all cancers. The research would allow the drugs to be used on tumours which do not have this genetic flaw, by effectively “recreating” the defect, say the scientists.
In experiments on mice with lung tumours, the team showed that blocking a molecule called Cdk1 also stopped DNA repair. When rats were given a PARP inhibitor, it successfully shrunk their cancer, the Daily Mail reported.
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