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Israeli researchers uncover Viagra’s potential to control cancer
Weizmann Institute of Science finds active ingredient in the drug disrupts spread by stopping cholesterol
Israeli scientists have found a way in which Viagra, the drug best known for treating male erectile dysfunction, can help stop the spread of cancer through a newly-discovered biological mechanism.
In peer-reviewed research published in July’s Cancer Research, scientists at the Weizmann Institute of Science showed that sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, disrupts cancer cells’ cholesterol supply, a crucial material they need to metastasise to other organs.
The research was led by Dr. Yarden Ariav from Professor Ayelet Erez’s laboratory at Weizmann, researchers in Professor Eytan Ruppin’s lab at the US National Cancer Institute, the Innovation Division at Israel’s national health provider Clalit Health Services, and doctors and scientists from Clalit-Beilinson Hospital in Petah Tikva.
Their findings were based on mouse cancer models, cultures of cancer cells from human patients, and data collected over 20 years from some 5 million Clalit members.
Survival rates were highest among the patients who had taken both sildenafil and statins, a common class of cholesterol-lowering drugs, six months before their diagnosis, the data showed.
The laboratory tests focused mostly on cancers such as triple-negative breast cancer, melanoma, and lung cancer.
A statement from the Weizmann Institute says the researchers also found that combining drugs from the Viagra family with statins, which reduce cholesterol production in the body, may be even more effective at restricting metastasis. The combination could not only limit cancer cells’ access to existing cholesterol but also prevent them from producing new cholesterol, potentially enhancing the anti-metastatic effect.
Professor Ayelet Erez told The Times of Israel that the next step is to “push medicine” with “a clinical trial to give Viagra to women with triple-negative breast cancer”.
Erez, who is also a doctor in addition to serving as a senior researcher and dean of Weizmann’s Miriam and Aaron Gutwirth Medical School, added: “Our study underscores the importance of treating the whole patient – not just the cancer – when tailoring the most effective therapy.”
Viagra was originally developed to treat high blood pressure and chest pain caused by reduced blood flow to the heart.
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