Malaria drug may help in cancer fight: study

LONDON, July 26, (Agencies): An offpatent malaria drug could help to destroy cancer cells by making them more susceptible to radiotherapy, according to early work that has prompted British scientists to start a clinical trial.

Researchers reported on Monday that atovaquone boosted oxygen levels in tumour cells in mice, making radiotherapy more effective against a range of cancer types, including lung, bowel, brain and head and neck cancer.

Cancer cells with low oxygen levels are more difficult to treat with radiotherapy and are more likely to spread to other parts of the body.

“We have now started a clinical trial ...to see if we can show the same results in cancer patients,” said lead researcher Gillies McKenna of the Cancer Research UK Radiation Research Centre in Oxford.

“We hope that this existing low-cost drug will mean that resistant tumours can be re-sensitised to radiotherapy. And we’re using a drug that we already know is safe.”

His team’s findings were published in the journal Nature Communications.

The idea of repurposing existing drugs to fight cancer is gaining traction as scientists realise that older medicines can sometimes complement other therapies.

The fact that such drugs are already off patent means they are cheap, but the lack of patent protection is also a potential problem because drug companies investing in late-stage research have less certainty of a commercial payback.

Atovaquone is used to both treat and prevent malaria. It is usually prescribed to travellers as Malarone, a combination of atovaquone and proguanil developed by GlaxoSmithKline.

Human testing started Monday in Brazil on a controversial anti-cancer medicine that has been distributed in the country for years without having gone through proper trials.

The drug, a synthetic phosphoethanolamine known widely as “the cancer pill” was beginning testing with 10 patients at the Sao Paulo Cancer Institute, the Sao Paulo state health department said.

None of those taking part in the trial are being treated with any other drugs, a statement said. If no serious side effects are noted, the trial will then be expanded to up to 1,000 people. A Pakistani health worker administers polio vaccine drops to a child during a doorto-door polio campaign in Karachi on July 25. Pakistan is one of only three countries in the world where polio remains endemic but years of efforts to stamp it out have been badly hit by reluctance from parents, opposition from militants and attacks on immunisation teams. (AFP)

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