Drug created from malaria parasite shows promise as bladder cancer treatment
A drug created from a malaria protein stopped tumor growth of chemotherapy-resistant bladder cancer, offering hope for cancer patients not responding to standard treatments. The study advances previous research that showed that a protein from the malaria parasite, called VAR2CSA, could target a wide range of cancer tumors.
In the new research, highly aggressive bladder cancer tumors that were completely resistant to chemotherapy were implanted in the bladder of mice. The researchers then tested whether the malaria protein could deliver drugs directly to tumors—which responded dramatically to the malaria drug combo. Eighty percent of the treated animals were alive after 70 days, whereas all the other animals, in three different control groups, succumbed to bladder cancer.
Bladder cancer is the fifth most common cancer and the most expensive cancer to manage on a per patient basis. Currently, there is only one line of chemotherapy used for invasive bladder cancer, and there have been few advances in finding new treatments in the past 20 years.
Previous studies established that the VAR2CSA protein could be used to deliver cancer drugs directly to tumors because it binds to a sugar molecule that is found only in cancer tumors and the placenta of pregnant animals. These latest findings demonstrate that the same sugar is expressed in bladder cancer and is especially abundant in tumors that progress after being treated with the standard chemotherapy drug cisplatin.
The researchers’ next step is to design a process that could see the VAR2CSA drug combination manufactured on a larger scale to begin clinical trials. The study, “An oncofetal glycosaminoglycan modification provides therapeutic access to cisplatin-resistant bladder cancer,” was published in European Urology (www.europeanurology.com/article/S0302-2838(17)30232-4/fulltext).