Breast Cancer may be Treated by New Combination Therapy

Adding anti-malaria drug to conventional breast cancer inhibitors can dramatically increase the rate by which the treatment kills cancer cells, anew study led by Indian-origin researchers has shown.

While they are powerful killers of some breast cancer cells, new drugs called histone deacetylase inhibitors, or HDAC inhibitors, also increase self-digestion, or autophagy, in surviving, mega-stressed cells.

Breast Cancer - Causes, Risks, Symptoms, Diagnosis, Staging, Treatment, Prevention & Prognosis
Breast cancer is a cancer that affects the breasts or mammary glands. Early detection and lifestyle changes help in controlling breast cancer.

"To meet the energy demands of growth and survival, cancer cells start eating up their own organelles, so that surviving cells become dependent on this autophagy," said Dr. Kapil Bhalla, director of the Medical College of Georgia Cancer Centre.

"By also using autophagy inhibitors, we pull the rug out from under them. The only way out is death," he added.

The research team led by Bhalla and Dr Rekha Rao, first author of the study showed the potent HDAC inhibitor panobinostat's impact on autophagy in human breast cancer cells in culture as well as those growing in the mammary fat pads of mice.

About Cancer in Women
Cancer is one of the frequently talked about and most feared disease that falls under the genre of lifestyle diseases that have evolved, rather rapidly, in the past two decades.

When they added the anti-malaria drug chloroquine, which inhibits autophagy, breast cancer kill rates increased dramatically.

"As breast cancer is growing, it's developing these mechanisms of resistance to death," said Bhalla.

Breast Lumps
Most breast lumps are caused by hormonal changes in a woman and may not be cancerous. Common causes of breast lumps include fibroadenosis, breast cancer, breast cyst.

"What we are saying is there is a new way to affect a resistant population," he added.

He said that chloroquine, a known anti-malarial and inhibitor of autophagy, already is being paired with chemotherapy and radiation is some cancer clinical trials.

Breast Lumps Screening
Breast lumps must never be neglected but instead be subjected to medical examination to rule out cancer.

But because of its significant side effects, new, more tolerable autophagy inhibitors need to be developed which can be combined with currently available anticancer agents, such as panobinostat, to attain superior therapeutic effect against breast cancer, Bhalla added.

Source-ANI
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