New drug approach puts the brakes on tumour growth

New drug approach puts the brakes on tumour growth. Combination therapy could tackle drug-resistant cancers %0A " - By Lucy Goodchild - Friday 9 January 2009 The size of breast and prostate tumours can be reduced significantly with a new approach that attacks them from different angles, according to a new study published in December in the - The approach combines a drug that stops cell division and causes cell suicide (STX140) with a molecule derived from sugar that starves cells of energy (2DG). The combination of the drug and the sugar-like molecule reduced the growth of tumours in mice by 76% in the research, carried out by a team at Imperial College London. The scientists believe this new approach has the potential to tackle drug-resistant cancers and should have fewer toxic side-effects than current therapy. Conventional chemotherapy and radiation therapy work by targeting the rapidly- dividing cells on the outside of a tumour. However, this leaves the slow-growing cells in the central part of the tumour to survive. By targeting both types of cell, the team found that they could reduce tumour growth significantly.