New drugs offering fresh hope for those patients with prostate cancer

They slow tumour growth and trigger cancer cell death and could help as many as two in five of all sufferers...

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A DOUBLE-pronged attack on advanced prostate cancer could help treat as many as two in five patients with late-stage disease, scientists have found. Using drugs that are already being used to treat other cancers, or those in development, can slow tumour growth and trigger cancer cell death, experts found.

Experts at The Institute of Cancer Research, London, tested the new combination against cancer cells which had become resistant to hormone therapy, knowing that among this patient group outcomes are poor when they become resistant to treatment. They set out to find a combination of drugs which attack proteins in the body which promote cancer cell survival.

MCL1 is a protein that promotes cancer cell survival and protein AKT plays a key role in a mechanism that many cancer cells rely on to survive, grow and resist treatment. The research, published in the journal Nature Communications, found that inhibiting MCL1 and AKT at the same time triggered prostate cancer cell death.