Mebendazole
Safe and effective?
People will not let them drag their feet on this one.
PRECISION MEDICINE & CHRONIC DISEASES
We're pioneering new treatments for prostate cancer
A bold new treatment for prostate cancer could soon be available by repurposing an existing drug.
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer in men and kills 12,000 every year in the UK.
Currently, docetaxel is the main chemotherapy drug used to treat prostate cancer. But many patients end up developing resistance to the drug and their cancer returns.
Now, new research from the University of Glasgow and the Cancer Research UK Beatson Institute has uncovered that a cheap medicine, commonly used to treat a parasitic worm infection, can also effectively tackle prostate cancer when used in conjunction with docetaxel.
The drug is called mebendazole. It was identified after the researchers tested around a thousand existing medicines to ascertain if any could be repurposed against prostate cancer.
The study found that mebendazole enhanced the ability of docetaxel to kill prostate cancer cells and abolish tumour growth in mouse models of prostate cancer.
Mebendazole and docetaxel work together to kill prostate cancer cells by disrupting the molecular scaffold used by cells to divide. This scaffold is vital for cancer cells to grow and divide and so without it the cancerous cells die.
Prostate cancer cells stained with blue coomassie
Prostate cancer cells stained with Coomassie blue dye
Drug repurposing in this way is advantageous as existing drugs already have satisfactory safety records. They can therefore be fast-tracked to treat the new disease.
Dr Linda Rushworth, researcher at the Institute of Cancer Sciences, University of Glasgow, worked on the study:
"Mebendazole and docetaxel have been well tested in patients and, since the safety of both drugs has already been determined, the timescale from lab to clinic is significantly reduced."
It is also cost effective. Mebendazole is on the World Health Organisation's list of essential medicines and costs less that £2 per pill from a pharmacist.