Toronto (ECN) - Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have reported that a new drug has been found which appears to kill breast cancer stem cells more effectively than existing breast cancer drugs. Salinomycin, an antibiotic used to treat farm animals, has shown in tests on mice that it performs one hundred times better than existing drugs such as paclitaxel.
When salinomycin was given to mice with tumors the growth of the tumor slowed. It appears to be able to kill stem cells that make breast tumors grow and especially reoccur. Although prior efforts to find drugs that can attack cancer stem cells have not been successful this seems to work at least in cultures and mice. When treated with salinomycin the stem cells were less capable of growing into tumors and slowed growth of tumors already present. Scientists feel that eventually the drug, used in combination with other forms of cancer treatment, will be able to kill stem cells as well as ordinary cancer cells. These stem cells are notoriously hard to kill, can be resistant to conventional chemotherapy and other drugs. While other cancer cells will be killed off with chemotherapy and drugs these stem cells remain to "seed" new tumor growth.
Dr. John Stingl, a scientist at Cancer Research UK's Cambridge Research Institute stated that this is very early research but seems to be one of the biggest advances seen so far this year in this area. It may well be the beginning of a new way of identifying cancer drugs. Dr. Alexis Willett, head of policy at Breakthrough Breast Cancer has added that the research provides a clue as to how to identify the stem cells. Doing this they will be able to be targeted and killed. It will be some time before this is ready for actual clinical use as the research is still in its early stages. The Salinomycin has only been tested on cultures and mice so far but looks exceptionally promising.
