Introduction of New Drugs for Treating Hormone-Resistant Prostate Cancers

By 6th May 2016 UK Pharma No Comments

According to a study published on May 1, 2016 in the journal Cancer Research, Hsp90 inhibitor could provide useful treatment for advanced prostate cancers that have become resistant to hormone treatment.

It will work by decreasing the production of androgen receptor modification by using latest and new method of action.

Basically prostate tumors depends on androgens to grow and extend, depriving androgen receptors of these hormones can be an efficient and successful treatment

Base on this study, researchers targeted the one of this androgen receptor alternative, AR-V7. They produced the cancer cells in the lab and injected them into mice. Then they administered a drug (onalespib) that inhibits Hsp90, a chaperone molecule involved in the transcriptional action of these receptors.

According to the study co-leader Johann de Bono, MD, PhD, MSc, Professor of Experimental Cancer Medicine at the Institute of Cancer Research (ICR), in London, United Kingdom, “We have established for the first time that Hsp90 inhibitors that can obstruct the growth of the most common abnormal androgen receptors that cause many prostate cancers to stop responding to existing treatments. The researchers revealed that inhibiting Hsp90 decreased the production of AR-V7, but not by disrupted its known chaperone function”.

According to the opinion of study co-leader Paul Workman, PhD, Chief Executive of the ICR, “Our study has found that Hsp90 inhibition can particularly stop resistance to hormone treatments in prostate cancer through a totally new method linking the dispensation of messenger RNA.”

Dr. Workman explained, ‘We identify Hsp90 inhibitors ‘network drugs’ because they deal with several of the signals that are hijacked in cancer all at once, across a complex network rather than just a single way,”.

Hsp90 inhibitors are already in clinical trials for numerous types of cancer.

2nd May 2016

http://www.mdlinx.com/pharmacy/article/414