Been a little quiet on the blog as I have been slammed with work stuff and still trying to recover from whatever that second virus-head-cold thing was. It’s SXSW in Austin and the sleep deficit I’m carrying isn’t going to be wiped out anytime soon.
But I did see an interesting story I wanted to share. Researchers at the University of Kentucky have identified a molecular mechanism that allows melanoma to spread. And as we know, spreading melanoma is not a good thing. But there are existing drugs on the market that potentially can be used to disrupt that mechanism, halting the metastasizing tumor in its tracks. The drugs have been around for decades to fight leukemia. They’re called Abl and Arg inhibitors and one of the great things about them is the fact that there are few serious side effects.
There’s a whole lot of science behind the mechanism and if you love dense medical jargon, you’ll love the article. But basically, there are enzymes called cathepsins that degrade proteins, particularly around cancer tumors. This allows bits of the cancer tumor to move around the body, metastasizing to distant locations from the original tumor. The drugs work to actually increase the amount of cathepsin produced in cancer cells, which seems counter-intuitive. But there’s so much being produced that it ends up being released into the environment between cells, not in the actual tumor structure. So the tumor doesn’t break into smaller pieces and get into the bloodstream or the lymphatic system.
Since these drugs are already on the market, it’s not like melanoma patients are going to need to wait years and years for something to be produced, tested, and put into rotation. Because for metastatic melanoma patients, the majority of them don’t have the luxury of time. As noted in the article, despite new advances in metastatic melanoma treatment, the 5-year survival rate is only 15% to 20%. I’m hoping that these inhibitor drugs will allow that percentage to go up.
I wonder if they work
Inhibitor drugs have shown great promise in limited studies. Obviously, we need larger human clinical trials to really know the answer. But the science is sound and a lot of research is being focused on checkpoint inhibitor therapies. Melanoma patients may have a wide array of tools to fight their cancers in the very near future.