About 1,596,670 new cancer cases are expected to be diagnosed in 2011, according to the American Cancer Society, that doesn’t include the 12 million people in the U.S. already living with the disease. For many suffering with cancer, the treatments are often chemotherapy, radiation, or pills.
While these treatments come with their own side effects, they are often the only option and not all cancers respond to these treatments. That is why so many researchers are working on different drug cocktails that could attack these tough-to-beat tumors.
The work
Researchers at Brigham and Women’s Hospital are working on a drug combination that is showing promise in two different cancers: “a nervous system tumor associated with neurofibromatosis type 1, and KRAS-mutant lung cancer, a form of lung cancer that accounts for about 25 percent of all lung cancers,” a press released described.
“Without a targeted treatment that works, these two cancers are currently being treated with chemotherapy with variable success,” said Dr. Karen Cichowski, Associate Professor in Genetics at BWH and lead author of the paper. “By identifying a more effective targeted treatment, the outcome and survival rate for these cancers may see a drastic improvement, and patients may avoid the typical side-effects of chemotherapy.”
The researchers combined two drugs that shrunk cancerous tumors in mice. Dr. Cichowski explains how the medications work, “It’s like hitting the tumor cell from two different angles,” he explains. “Using one drug to put on the brakes and another to apply stress to an already stressed cancer cell, which ultimately triggers its self-destruction.”
Next step, clinical trials
Now the two researchers are hoping to shift their focus to clinical trials and see how the treatments work on humans.
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