Discovery: cheap medicine took millions of people is for …

A cheap blood pressure drug already taken from millions could help protect women from one of the most fatal forms of breast cancer, it suggests new research.

Melbourne Monash University scientists say that beta blockers – who work by dampening the effects of stress hormones – can also stop the progression of triple negative breast cancer in some patients.

The link between beta blockers and breast cancer emerged for the first time in 2023, even if it was not clear why.

Now, researchers believe they have identified the mechanism and with it potential low cost treatment for an extremely aggressive disease.

Their work examined the interaction between two reporting molecules, camp and football, which accelerate cancer spread when a receptor called Beta-2 Adrenoptor is activated.

Stress hormones such as cortisol can trigger this receptor, feeding cancer growth.

But the team has now discovered that beta blockers can turn off a gene – Hoxc12 – which guides this process, slowing down the progression of the disease.

The researchers said that the turning point could help doctors identify, at the point of diagnosis, which are more likely to benefit from blocker beta therapy.

Professor Michelle Halls, senior author of the study and an expert in biology of the discovery of drugs at the Monash Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences, said that the results were exciting as they confirmed the potential bond between beta -bloccanti and tumor progression.

‘Our colleagues previously discovered that beta -bloccanti are associated with a significant reduction in mortality in people with triple negative breast cancer.

“Now we have a much better understanding of why it could be the case,” he said.

Terrance Lam, a doctoral pharmaceutical candidate at the Institute and co -author of the study, added: “Our collective research strongly suggests that Hoxc12 is a potential new indicator for when triples of negative breast cancer could respond to the interventions aimed at the beta blocker.

“Triple negative breast cancer is an aggressive tumor that can be particularly difficult to treat and identify new treatment paths are important.”

The researchers now ask for further studies to “urgently” determine if the gene can be used to diagnosis to identify patients who benefit from blocker beta therapy and stop the spread of cancer.

Beta -bloccanti, commonly prescribed to reduce blood pressure, mainly work by slowing down the heart and blocking the action of stress hormones such as adrenaline.

According to the study, published in the scientific magazine Science Signaling, there is a strong correlation between the activation of the beta-2 Adrenoptor and the spread of accelerated cancer.

They also discovered that patients with high levels of expression of Hoxc12 were associated with poorer cancer survival results.

One in seven women in the UK is diagnosed with breast cancer in their life – about 56,000 per year – making it the most common cancer in the United Kingdom.

About 85 % of women with breast cancer diagnosis survive for more than five years after diagnosis.

However, triple negative breast cancer – which represents about 15 % of all breast cancer in the United Kingdom and in the United States – is much more demanding to treat.

Generally, it grows and spreads faster than other types of breast cancer and has less treatment options.

One of the reasons is because it does not interact with hormones such as estrogen in the same way as other breast cancers, for which there are targeted therapies.

On average, about 77 % of women with triple negative breast cancer will survive their cancer for five years or more after diagnosis, but depending on the stadium, this can drop up to 12 %.

This is compared with about 90 % of women with other forms of breast cancer that will survive for at least five years.

[Daily Mail UK]

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