Gene-controlling drugs could help enhance radiotherapy: study

Scientists from Britain have developed a new treatment strategy combining a class of drugs called AKT inhibitors with radiotherapy, which showed promising results in lab trials, according to a press release published on Monday by Cancer Research UK.

Tumors often grow so quickly that cells do not have access to the body's blood supply, causing them to become oxygen-starved. This rapid growth usually sends signals to the cells to die, but in some cancers with faults in a gene called p53, this signal is blocked, meaning the cells carry on growing.

Researchers said they found that six genes that help protect the body against cancer were less active in oxygen-starved cancer cells when p53 was also faulty.

In the absence of two of these genes - PHLDA3 and INPP5D - a gene called AKT becomes permanently switched on preventing the cells from dying despite being oxygen-starved.

When drugs designed to block AKT were given to mice with tumors and lab-grown cancer cells lacking p53, the radiotherapy killed more tumor cells.

This discovery sheds light on the role of oxygen-starvation in cancer development and suggests that drugs already being trialed in cancer patients could potentially boost the effectiveness of radiotherapy across a range of cancers, said Ester Hammond, a Cancer Research UK scientist who led the study. Endit