The anti-inflammatory tocilizumab can inhibit the growth of certain cancer cells. UMCG researcher Floris Foijer and his team have discovered this. The researchers expect the therapy to be rapidly developed as a cancer drug.
The anti-inflammatory agent counteracts so-called ‘chromosomally unstable cancer cells’, cancer cells with many errors in their DNA. The anti-inflammatory blocks the IL-6, inhibiting the growth of this specific type of cancer cells.
The response to the anti-inflammatory was shown in both mice and lab-grown cancer cells. This anti-inflammatory had little effect on most healthy cells, but chromosomally unstable cancer cells turned out to be very sensitive to it. This offers results for possible therapies against cancer, because in this way you can very selectively inhibit cancer cells.
Because tocilizumab is an existing anti-inflammatory drug that is already being used in the clinic, the research team expects this therapy to be developed quickly as a cancer drug. If all goes well, the first test results after research in humans will be available in five years.