Heart Drug Cuts Prostate Cancer Risk, Holds Potential for Therapeutic Use

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University have discovered through research that men using that cardiac drug, digoxin, had a 24% lower risk for prostate cancer. Digoxin, derived from the foxglove plant, has been used for decades to treat heart failure and arrhythmias. Now, the Johns Hopkins team has investigated the drug and discovered its ability to hinder prostate cancer cell growth. Additional research revealed that those who took digoxin for heart disease also showed a significant decrease in risk for prostate cancer. However, this does not prove that digoxin prevents prostate cancer and that healthy people should just start taking it, as it has numerous adverse side effects. In the first stage of research, John Hopkins professors identified 38 compounds out of over 3000 that reduced prostate cancer cell growth in the lab by at least 50%. Digoxin, since it is prescribed so widely, was one of the top hits on that list. To determine if there was a link between prostate cancer and digoxin, they performed a study on 47,000 men ages 40-75 who had participated previously in a 20-year long health study and did not have a cancer diagnosis before 1986. Results showed that those with regular use of digoxin had a 24% lower risk of getting prostate cancer that those who did not, and those who used digoxin for more than 10 years had a 50% lower risk, even after eliminating potentially “confounding factors” that may have skewed the results. The next steps will be to determine the mechanism behind digoxin’s effect on prostate cancer cells and testing it as a possible prostate cancer therapy.

I found this article interesting because of the prevalence of prostate cancer in older males and the importance of its diagnosis and treatment, as mentioned in many lectures. In addition, a link between enzymatic pathways in heart cells and prostate cells may also be on the verge of discovery, as implied by the article. A discovery like this may encourage researchers to find similarities between organs of different organ systems, which may pave the way for revolutionary findings in the near future to combat diseases, such as prostate cancer, which currently have no cure.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/04/110403090254.htm