Nice AGL10 Jan 2019 16:57
Key bit for me :
Following this discovery, the researchers investigated the potential for 2,486 compounds already approved by the FDA for a number of different indications, to cause the CTC clusters to dissociate (break up into individual cells). They found a small number of drugs with the capability to do this. Once dissociated, they found that CTC clusters (now single cells) lost their high metastatic potential.
The directors believe that the results show exceptional promise for use in human cancer. The mechanism of action of the drugs was to effectively weaken the cell-cell connections in the CTC cluster rather than to kill the cancer cells. Conventional chemotherapy seeks to kill the cancer cell and is consequently inherently toxic, which is why patients can suffer serious side effects from the treatment as non-cancer cells may also be adversely affected. Further, conventional therapies aimed at killing cancer cells are prone to give rise to drug-resistant cell populations, which can ultimately lead to disease relapse. In contrast, the drugs used for the CTC cluster dissociation are already approved by the FDA for different non-cancer indications and do not have the typical side effects of chemotherapy or immunotherapy.