Complain about a product or service

Celebrex-Lipitor Combo May Halt Prostate Cancer

Anti-inflammatory and statin used in tandem can stop progression of disease

April 14, 2008

• Broccoli Reduces Prostate Cancer Risk, Study Finds • Celebrex-Lipitor Combo May Halt Prostate Cancer • Exercise May Speed Prostate Tumor Growth • Soy Compound May Halt Spread of Prostate Cancer • Obesity Linked to Higher Prostate Cancer Mortality • Red Wine May Fight Prostate Cancer • Enlarged Prostate Doesn't Mean Cancer • Hopkins Researchers Claim Better Blood Test for Prostate Cancer • Severe Form of Enlarged Prostate Disease Discovered • Tomato-Broccoli Combo Can Help Shrink Prostate Cancers • Weight Gain Increases Risk of Dying from Prostate Cancer • Smoking Linked to Complications in Prostate Cancer Treatment • Newer Approach Urged in Screening for Aggressive Prostate Cancer • Aspirin May Prevent or Delay Enlarged Prostate • Hopkins Researchers Find Better Blood Test for Prostate Cancer • Prostate Radiation May Cause Problems Later • New Test Detects Prostate Cancer Spread Earlier • Castration May Be Advised in Advanced Prostate Cancer • Radiation Therapy May Be Best for Younger Prostate Cancer Patients • Study Recommends More Prostate Biopsies • Delayed Surgery May Be OK for Some Prostate Cancer Patients • Study: PSA Test Doesn't Improve Prostate Cancer Survival Rate • Prostate Cancer Genes Identified • Annual Prostate Cancer Screening Test Appears to Save Lives • FDA Panel Rejects Prostate Cancer Pill • PSA Test Still Useful, Hopkins Study Finds • No "Normal" PSA Level: Study • New Prostate Cancer Test Shows Promise • Lifestyle and Diet May Stop or Reverse Prostate Cancer Progression

Researchers at Rutgers’ Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy say they have shown that administering a combination of the widely used drugs Celebrex and Lipitor stops the transition of early prostate cancer to its more aggressive and potentially fatal stage.

In the early stage of the disease, when it is typically diagnosed, prostate cancer cells depend on androgen hormones, such as testosterone, to grow. Treatment at this stage involves either decreasing the production of the hormone or blocking its actions on the cancer cells.

“Anti-androgen therapy slows the prostate cancer but eventually the cancer becomes androgen-independent, the therapy becomes ineffective and the cancer cells become more aggressive,” said Xi Zheng, assistant research professor at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, who conducted the study.

Celebrex (celecoxib) is a nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug frequently used to treat arthritis and Lipitor (atorvastatin) is a popular cholesterol-lowering statin.

“Treatments available for the later stage cancers are not very good,” said Allan Conney, director of Rutgers’ Susan Lehman Cullman Laboratory for Cancer Research, another researcher on the project. “Oncologists employ classical chemotherapy drugs which are very toxic and don’t work all that well.”

Zheng and Conney’s research objective was to find a way to delay indefinitely the transition to androgen-independence, prolonging the time during which the cancer would be responsive to effective, low-toxicity, anti-hormone therapy.

Zheng explained that their experiments were first conducted on cell cultures in the laboratory, where the researchers tested the effects of the drugs on the growth of prostate cancer cells from four different cell lines.

They then moved on to test the drugs on specially bred mice in which prostate cancer tumors were introduced under the skin. Celebrex alone, Lipitor alone, and the two in combination were tested at the lab bench and on the mice.

“A combination of low doses of Lipitor and Celebrex had a more potent inhibiting effect on the formation of later stage tumors than a higher dose of either agent alone,” Zheng reported. “The results from our study indicate that a combination of Lipitor and Celebrex may be an effective strategy for the prevention of prostate cancer progression from the first to the second stage.”

Zheng also noted that the team is exploring the underlying molecular mechanisms to understand how Lipitor and Celebrex work on prostate cancer, perhaps identifying an important signaling pathway for tumor cell growth that the drugs inhibit.

Conney pointed out that previous experiments reported in the Sept. 15, 2007, issue of Clinical Cancer Research had demonstrated that the Lipitor-Celebrex combination also inhibited the growth of prostate cancer cells in the later androgen-independent stage.

“So if you can affect the early stage and prevent it from becoming the more severe form, that’s a good thing. If you can also inhibit the growth of the more severe form, that’s also a good thing,” Conney said.

Human clinical trials are being planned at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in New Brunswick.

“If the clinical trials go well, we could have something available in five years, but it would be nice to speed that up,” Conney said. “If the trials show that the drug therapy does a good job of preventing the cancer from advancing, we won’t need to worry about how to handle the more aggressive later-stage cancer.

“This is something we hope is going to save lives,” he added.

Prostate cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in men in the United States, with more than a quarter-million new cases appearing each year, according to the American Cancer Society.

Report Your Experience
If you've had a bad experience -- or a good one -- with a consumer product or service, we'd like to hear about it. All complaints are reviewed by class action attorneys and are considered for publication on our site. Knowledge is power! Help spread the word. File your consumer report now.