Researchers investigate if common hypertension therapeutic can help kill tumor cells.
According to a study by researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine, beta blockers have the ability to interrupt the way certain nerves stimulate prostate cancer tumor blood vessel growth, thus stopping their propagation and ultimately choking off the blood supply that causes the malignant tissue to grow in the first place.
The National Cancer Institute, which puts prostate cancer second to skin cancer as the most common cancer in men, estimates that 161,360 new cases will be diagnosed in 2017 and of them, more than 26,000 will be fatal cases.
Building on earlier research that confirmed the role that the sympathetic nervous system plays in promoting prostate cancer tumor blood vessel growth, examined mouse models of prostate cancer to determine precisely how nerves within connective tissue drive tumor growth.
"Solid tumors depend on an expanding blood supply to thrive," said study leader Paul Frenette, Director of the Ruth L. and David S. Gottesman Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine Research at Einstein and a member of the NCI-designated Albert Einstein Cancer Center. "Here we show that nerves stimulate the new blood vessels that encourage prostate tumor growth—and that we can short-circuit nerve stimulation to prevent new vessels from forming. This opens up an entirely new strategy for treating prostate cancer—one that we may be able to pursue using existing drugs."
Explaining that beta-blockers work by blocking the effects of norepinephrine and similar compounds, Frenette said, “Retrospective epidemiological studies have found that use of these drugs by men with prostate cancer was associated with reduced metastasis and increased survival. While we need to learn more about the role that norepinephrine-releasing nerves play in prostate cancer, it's certainly worth exploring whether beta-blockers can improve disease outcomes," he concluded.
