Xinhua News Agency
April 14, 2008
WASHINGTON -- Administering a combination of the widely used drugs Celebrex, an anti-inflammatory drug, and Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering drug, stops the transition of early prostate cancer to its more aggressive and potentially fatal stage, according to a new study released by U.S. researchers.
The findings were presented at the annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research on Monday.
"A combination of low doses of Lipitor and Celebrex had a more potent inhibiting effect on the formation of later stage tumors than a higher dose of either agent alone," reported lead researcher Xi Zheng from Rutgers University.
In the experiments, researchers tested the effects of the drugs on the growth of prostate cancer cells from four different cell lines. They then moved on to test the drugs on specially bred mice in which prostate cancer tumors were introduced under the skin.
Celebrex alone, Lipitor alone, and the two in combination were tested at the lab bench and on the mice.
The results indicate that a combination of the two drugs may be an effective strategy for the prevention of prostate cancer progression from the first to the second stage.
The research team is now exploring the underlying molecular mechanisms to understand how Lipitor and Celebrex work on prostate cancer, perhaps identifying an important signaling pathway for tumor cell growth that the drugs inhibit.
Copyright 2008 XINHUA NEWS AGENCY.
