Adding hydroxyurea to the current standard chemotherapy could very significantly improve its effectiveness.
A diagnosis of brain cancer glioblastoma involves a very poor prognosis, with most patients dying within five years. A hope for the mass treatment of glioblastoma is opened by a team led by researchers at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston: adding hydroxyurea, an already old drug, to the current chemotherapy protocol significantly increases survival and cure , in an animal model of glioblastoma.
The study was published in the journal Neuro-Oncology. “The combination led to a significant increase in survival in different mouse models, ranging from 40% to 60% cure,” says Bakhos Tannous, lead author of the study.
A breakthrough for several types of glioblastoma
With these promising results, the team studied this combination in several types of glioblastoma. Although each drug, taken individually, had only a moderate effect on tumor growth and survival, the combination very significantly improved its anticancer efficacy.
“The fact that the combination is effective in all cell and animal models and that it is non-selective for a particular type of glioblastoma is very exciting as it suggests that the combination could be effective in all patients with glioblastoma”, Bakhos Tannous assures us. “Hydroxyurea has been used for decades to treat conditions such as sickle cell anemia and certain types of cancer. This means that this approach could be quickly accessible to many patients and we are in the process of starting a phase 1 clinical trial to test this association ”.
.
