Existing anti-fungal drug may treat cancer
Hye Ji Cha, Edward Marcotte, John Wallingford and colleagues at the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin, found the drug -- a Food and Drug Administration-approved, generic drug in use for 40 years -- destroyed newly established blood vessels, making it a "vascular disrupting agent."
Inhibiting blood vessel, or vascular, growth could be an important chemotherapeutic tool because it starves tumors, which induce new blood vessel formation to feed their out-of-control growth, Cha said.
Trials involving mice, published in the journal PLoS Biology, found thiabendazole decreased blood vessel growth in fibrosarcoma tumors -- cancers of the connective tissue -- by more than half.
Fibrosarcomas are generally heavily vascularized with blood vessels, Cha said.
"This is very exciting to us, because in a way we stumbled into discovering the first human-approved vascular disrupting agent," Marcotte said in a statement. "Our research suggests that thiabendazole could probably be used clinically in combination with other chemotherapies."
Read more: http://www.upi.com/Health_News/2012/08/21/Existing-anti-fungal-drug-may-treat-cancer/UPI-24701345607040/#ixzz24UIJ2yRL
