The new medicine rigosertib leaves cancer cells without energy, destroying them
Last reviewed: 16.10.2021
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According to the American Cancer Society, in 2012 there will be 37 thousand deaths caused by pancreatic cancer, as well as 44 thousand new cases of this severe illness. The new medicament rigosertib allows cancer cells of the pancreas to start its replication process, and then leaves them without energy, freezing, that is, destroying in the very middle of mitosis. Healthy cells do not suffer from this.
Data from the first phase of clinical trials conducted at the University of Colorado and Onconova Therapeutics (USA) on patients who suffer from stage II and III of pancreatic cancer have proved extremely promising. You can find them in the journal Clinical Cancer Research. Despite the fact that the goal of any first phase of testing is always to establish an optimally balanced dose (efficacy / severity of side effects), 11 of 19 patients demonstrated stabilization and cessation of disease progression.
Instead of obeying and following the natural cell cycle, cancer cells hurry, producing in excess of two factors - PLK1 and PI3K. They allow cells to literally slip through the entire cell cycle and share much faster. Thus, cancer cells pass one of the stages of the mechanism of regulation of the cell cycle G1, completely relying on the functionality of factors PLK1 and PI3K to ensure a mad spurt through the replication process.
It is PLK1 and PI3K that have become the goal of rigotsertib. Without these signaling factors (if turned off), cancer cells remain without energy and die at the stage of mitosis. While healthy cells crawling slowly through their normal natural fission cycle, the new medication is not affected.
Thus, scientists managed to grasp the greatest advantage of cancer cells - rapid division - and direct it against them themselves. In addition, it is a rare case when a drug acts on the very basis of cellular life, without completely affecting healthy cells. Especially popular for about twenty years, taxol (Paclitaxel) also undermines the cellular mechanism of division, but it does not make any difference between healthy and cancer cells, which leads to a rapid decay of the whole organism.