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Mesothelioma
Treatment
Abstracts
& Articles
Cholesterol
Drug May Inhibit Mesothelioma Cancer Cell
Growth
MINNEAPOLIS
-- Researchers at the Veterans Affairs
Medical Center and the Department of
Medicine at the University of Minnesota
may have discovered an effective treatment
for mesothelioma using a common
cholesterol reducing drug.
The
researchers -- Jeffrey Rubins, Rodd
Greatens, Robert A. Kratzke, Annie T. Tan,
Vitaly A. Polunovsky and Peter Bitterman
-- said that their research shows that the
drug lovastatin reduced the cell viability
of mesothelioma.
Lovastatin
appeared to reduce mesothelioma viability
by inducing apoptosis -- or programmed
cell death -- which may provide the basis
for adjunctive treatment of patients with
the disease, the researchers said in a
study published in the May edition of the
American Journal of Respiratory and
Critical Care Medicine (AJRCCM).
Lovastatin
is made by Merck, Sharp & Dohme in
Rahway, N.J. The drug is a fungal
metabolite and has been reported to
inhibit cell growth in a number of
malignant tumors and normal proliferating
cell cultures, the researchers
said.
"Our
studies suggest that lovastatin, a widely
used and well-tolerated pharmaceutical,
can substantially inhibit mesothelioma
growth and induce tumor-cell apoptosis,"
the researchers said.
"Importantly,
lovastatin appears to have synergistic
activity with antimetabolites used against
other malignant cells. Taken together with
previous reports, our data support further
investigation of lovastatin as a potential
adjunctive therapy for treatment of this
lethal and refractory cancer," according
to the researchers.
The
study can be found on the AJRCCM Web
site.
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options or your legal rights, please
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