Anti-psychotic drugs could help fight cancer

The observation that people taking medication for schizophrenia have lower cancer rates than other people has prompted new research revealing that anti-psychotic drugs could help treat some major cancers.

A preliminary finding in the current online issue of the International Journal of Cancer reports that the anti-psychotic drug, pimozide, kills lung, breast and brain cancer cells in in-vitro laboratory experiments.

Several epidemiological studies have noted the low rate of cancer among schizophrenic patients. These studies found, for example, that these patients have lower rates of lung cancer than other people, even though they are more likely to smoke.

Genetic factors and the possibility of reduced cancer detection in patients have been considered and over the past decade anti-psychotic drugs have been suggested as possible mediators of this effect.

In the new study, pimozide was the most lethal of six anti-psychotic drugs tested by a team from UNSW and the University of Queensland. Rapidly-dividing cancer cells require cholesterol and lipids to grow and the researchers suspect that pimozide kills cancer cells by blocking the synthesis or movement of cholesterol and lipid in cancer cells.

Analysis of gene expression in test cancer cells showed that genes involved in the synthesis and uptake of cholesterol and lipids were boosted when pimozide was introduced.

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Popular Breast Cancer Drug Used with Certain Antidepressants Puts New Jersey Women at Risk

A new analysis finds that women in New Jersey who take the breast cancer drug tamoxifen in conjunction with certain popular antidepressants may be at a higher risk for a breast cancer recurrence.

In May, Medco Health Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MHS) and Indiana University School of Medicine released a study revealing that women using tamoxifen to prevent a recurrence of breast cancer who also use certain selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI), for example Prozac(R) (fluoxetine), Paxil(R) (paroxetine) and Zoloft(R) (sertraline), have up to twice the chance of having a recurrence of the disease.

In a separate New Jersey-specific analysis, Medco found that among nearly 2,000 tamoxifen patients in the state during 2008, 12 percent were also taking SSRIs, including those that could put them in the at-risk population.

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