In a new study, researchers found drugs that could fight advanced prostate cancer that could also prevent and or treat acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
They focused on two hormones secreted by body fat, that modulate prostate cancer tumor growth could also have roles in driving the rapid-onset, severe lung inflammation that kills patients with serious COVID-19 disease.
They tested two novel drugs that target fat hormones, one hormone which is pro-inflammatory, and another hormone that has an anti-inflammatory effect; each of which is involved in the progression of prostate cancer.
The findings showed that these drugs could be effective treatments for ARDS.
The research was conducted by a team at the Queensland University of Technology.
ARDS is a rapid-onset life-threatening respiratory failure triggered by infection and the root cause of COVID-19-related death.
Even before COVID, ARDS killed three million patients annually worldwide placing a huge burden on hospitals’ intensive care units.
ARDS is usually related to flu, or other conditions such as lung injury.
Instead of a gradual immune response to infection, this response is hyper-activated in ARDS, and triggers an inflammatory ‘cytokine storm’ that also attacks healthy tissue, causing the lungs to fill with fluid and rapid respiratory failure.
Currently, ARDS treatment includes ventilation and antivirals but the drugs the researchers examined may address the overwhelming inflammatory response by targeting the signaling hormones responsible for it.
The researchers have very strong data that both these drugs suppress tumor progression in advanced treatment-resistant prostate cancer and, importantly, inflammation.
They have been collaborating with two US-based biotech companies to advance their research on the drugs to a phase 1 clinical trial in prostate cancer patients.
One author of the study is Dr. Lisa Philp.
The study is published in Endocrine-Related Cancer.
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