health

Untrodden Path

SHOSHANNA SOLOMON TIMES OF ISRAEL

Israeli study
shows drug
regimen can help
prevent cancer
recurrence.

Shamgar Ben-Eliyahu

68

August 31 • 2017

jn

T

aking an untrodden path, Israeli
researchers said they may have
found a way to reduce the risk of
post-surgical cancer recurrence by using
a drug regimen that includes the com-
bination of two drugs that relieve stress
and inflammation and have been on the
market for years.
Most cancer-related deaths are the
result of the regrowth of cancer cells
after surgery, a so-called post-surgical
metastatic recurrence. In metastasis,
cells of primary tumors travel to other
parts of the body, where they often pro-
liferate into inoperable, ultimately fatal
growths.
Now, researchers at Tel Aviv University
(TAU), in collaboration with the
University of California at Los Angeles
and three Israeli hospitals, say they
have found a specific drug regimen that,
administered to patients before and after
surgery, “significantly reduces the risk of
post-surgical cancer recurrence.”
The medications are a combination

of a beta blocker, which relieves stress
and high blood pressure, and an anti-
inflammatory drug. The treatment is safe
and inexpensive. The two medications
are similar in price to aspirin and are
easily administered to patients without
contraindications, the researchers said in
a statement. The study was published in
Clinical Cancer Research.
“We checked the molecular traits of
the excised tumor and found that the
drug treatment we administered makes
the tumor less metastatic,” said Professor
Shamgar Ben-Eliyahu of TAU’s School of
Psychological Sciences and Sagol School
of Neuroscience. “What we don’t know
yet is whether this improvement will be
translated in lower cancer recurrence
and lower mortality rates. A bigger study
on this needs to be done, and we will
need funding for this.”
In their study, the researchers deviated
from the current medical procedure for
cancer patients, which refrains from giv-
ing any treatment to patients during the
short period surrounding a cancer sur-
gery, which calls for no chemo-, radio-
or immune therapy for at least three
weeks before or after an operation, Ben-
Eliyahu explained.
“We’ve taken an unconventional
approach, deviating from the current
medical dogma,” he said. “Even within
the medical establishment, we encoun-
tered some levels of disbelief and antag-
onism. But after conducting ample
studies in animal models of cancer and
reviewing the medical literature, we
came to the firm conclusion that maybe
this is the most important period in the
prevention of cancer recurrence.”
For the study, 38 breast cancer
patients at Sheba Medical Center,
Kaplan Medical Center and Rabin
Medical Center were given a pharma-
cological treatment — Deralin (used to

reduce blood pressure and anxiety) and
Etopan (used to reduce inflammation) —
five days before their surgeries, the day
of their surgeries and five days after their
surgeries.
Blood and tumor tissue samples were
then analyzed.
“We found that the drugs were very
efficient in reducing biomarkers of
metastatic processes,” Ben-Eliyahu said.
“For example, we found that the drug
treatment reverses EMT — the process
that tumor cells go through to slip out
of the primary tumor and enter another
organ. It is a crucially important step in
the metastatic process. We also looked
at indices related to the immune system
and were able to improve immune com-
petence and reduce inflammation with
the drugs.”
The research team conducted a simi-
lar, as-yet-unpublished study on colorec-
tal cancer patients and found similar
results, the university said in a statement.
The findings are the result of 20 years
of studying animal models to see how
surgery and psychological and physiolog-
ical stress and inflammation cause the
recurrence of cancer, Ben-Eliyahu said.
The researchers are currently con-
sidering a larger-scale clinical trial to
establish the long-term beneficial effects
of this treatment. But because the drugs
used are generic medications and not
protected by patents, big pharma firms
may not be interesting in pursuing such
research, he said.
“So, we will need to be creative and
find other ways,” he said.
The research was led by Ben-Eliyahu
in collaboration with Professors
Steven Cole of UCLA; Oded Zmora of
Sheba Medical Center, Tel Hashomer;
Eran Sharon of Rabin Medical Center,
Beilinson; and Tanir Ellweiss of Kaplan
Medical Center. •

