FDA-Approved Antidepressant May Combat Some Brain Tumors

A widely available and inexpensive antidepressant may be effective at combating glioblastoma, a particularly deadly form of brain tumor, according to new research.

Glioblastoma is an aggressive, incurable brain tumor, and even with a standard treatment protocol of surgery, chemotherapy and radiation, half of patients die within 12 months of diagnosis. Drugs that target brain tumors have been difficult to find because many cancer drugs do not cross the blood-brain barrier.

Researchers led by ETH Zurich Professor Berend Snijder used pharmacoscopy, a screening platform developed at the university, to simultaneously test hundreds of active substances on living cells from human cancer tissue. Researchers tested up to 130 agents on fresh tumor tissue taken from 40 patients who had recently undergone surgery at University Hospital Zurich. They focused on substances known to cross the blood-brain barrier, such as antidepressants, Parkinson’s medication and antipsychotics.

Sohyon Lee, a postdoctoral student and lead author of the study published Friday in the journal Nature Medicine found that the antidepressant vortioxetine was most effective against the cancer cells in the laboratory.

Multiple antidepressants that were tested were "unexpectedly effective," but vortioxetine was most effective. Researchers found that a joint signaling cascade of neurons and cancer cells can suppress cell division.

Researchers at the University Hospital Zurich tested vortioxetine on mice with a glioblastoma and saw positive results. The next step will be to prepare two clinical trials in humans. In one, glioblastoma patients will receive vortioxetine in addition to surgery, chemotherapy and radiation. In the other, patients will receive an individualized drug selection using the pharmacoscopy platform.

Vortioxetine is already approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and similar agencies in other countries, meaning that if the trials show good results, it could quickly be added to treatment regimens.

“The advantage of vortioxetine is that it is safe and very cost-effective,” Michael Weller, Professor at the University Hospital Zurich, Director of the Department of Neurology and coauthor of the study, said in a statement. “As the drug has already been approved, it doesn’t have to undergo a complex approval procedure and could soon supplement the standard therapy for this deadly brain tumor.”

Weller cautioned patients against trying to obtain the drug on their own, however.

“We don’t yet know whether the drug works in humans and what dose is required to combat the tumor, which is why clinical trials are necessary. Self-medicating would be an incalculable risk," he warned.

“So far, it’s only been proven effective in cell cultures and in mice," Snijder said, though he remains hopeful. "We started with this terrible tumor and found existing drugs that fight against it. We show how and why they work, and soon we’ll be able to test them on patients.”

Story via TMX