2024-07-16 05:30:00
Pancreatic cancer, the turning point: asthma medicine to fight
Why the low incidence of pancreatic cancer among asthma patients? The question led an international research group, coordinated by the Institute of Genetics and Biophysics “A. Buzzati-Traverso” of the National Research Council of Naples (Cnr-Igb) with colleagues from the University of Campania “Luigi Vanvitelli”, from the Instituto de Investigaciones Biomedicas Sols-Morreale in Madrid and from the University of Tennessee in the United States One answer may be the effect of budesonide, a drug widely used to treat asthma. In fact, the compound appears to have a remarkable ability to fight pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma cells (PDAC), a common form of pancreatic cancer. .
The results of the study were published in July 2024 in the Journal of Cancer Research & Clinical Research, a journal of the Spring Nature group. “We focused on the inverse correlation which, according to statistical data, found a negative association between asthma patients on long-term treatment and the frequency of pancreatic cancer. Now we discovered that budesonide, a glucocorticoid drug already on the market for the treatment of asthma, is able to limit the most aggressive characteristics of human pancreatic cancer cells, such as the ability to multiply, invade and invade tissues. and other organs, in the basis of the spread of metastases”, explains Gabriella Minchiotti (Cnr-Igb), manager of the project. “In experiments with cultured cells and laboratory animals, it has been shown that budesonide inhibits the growth of pancreatic tumor cells stop by altering their metabolism and significantly interfering with changes necessary for tumor progression.”
In addition to being one of the most frequent forms of pancreatic cancer, pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is also aggressive. In 2023, approximately 14,800 new diagnoses will be estimated in Italy, according to data from the report “Cancer numbers in Italy”, published by the Italian Medical Association (www. aiom.it) in collaboration with the Italian Association of Cancer Registries (www.aiom.it) AIRTUM). Being a tumor that is often resistant to conventional treatments, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy, the estimated survival five years after diagnosis is less than 12%. Also, for this pathology, there are no effective screening methods: this means that, at the time of diagnosis, the tumor has often spread throughout the body, making any kind of intervention and therapy difficult.
“The results obtained suggest that it is possible to use budesonide also in preventive treatment, or as an adjuvant in the treatment of pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma. The method in the medical jargon is called “adjustment” because it is used in the case of drugs that are already used for certain therapeutic indications and are effective in the treatment of pathologies other than those for which approved first for, adds researcher Cristina D’ Aniello (Cnr-Igb), corresponding co-author of the article. “Also, the research can open new frontiers for the development of therapies in the fight against this type of tumor, with savings in time and money”.
The research received basic support from the AIRC Foundation for cancer research, and from the Ministry of Education and Research under the program PRIN 2022 and the national plan for matching investments to PNRR (PNC) funded D3 4 Health project from the European Union – Next Generation EU.
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