New Agent Shrinks Cancer, Leaves Healthy Tissues Untouched

New Agent Shrinks Cancer, Leaves Healthy Tissues Untouched

Head and neck cancer is aggressive and is often treated with a powerful combination of radiation and chemotherapy. While this approach may be successful, it can also damage healthy tissues and cause negative side effects. That may soon change due to the promising results of a new study. Researchers from the School of Dentistry and School of Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UTHSCSA) discovered that the agent capsazepine may shrink tumors without damaging neighboring tissues in mice with oral cancer.

Capsazepine was developed to block TRPV1—a calcium channel found in pain-sensing neurons. Researchers report that this agent may help reduce oral cancer pain because it blocks tumor-secreted factors from stimulating TRPV1 on these neurons. Researchers believe that the agent may also exhibit anticancer activity—inflicting oxidative damage in tumors, and tumors alone.

The agent capsazepine has currently been tested only on primary tumors through local administration. Because head and neck cancers typically spread quickly, the researchers are anxious to use the drug to treat metastasized cancers. “Our laboratory is working with the Center for Innovation in Drug Discovery, a partnership between the Health Science Center and UTHSCSA, to develop novel drugs that are similar to capsazepine with improved efficacy for the purpose of systemic administration to treat tumors that are inaccessible to local injection or that have metastasized,” notes Cara B. Gonzales, DDS, PhD, lead author and assistant professor of comprehensive dentistry at UTHSCSA.

The findings, “Vanilloids Induce Oral Cancer Apoptosis Independent of TRPV1,” were published in May in Oral Oncology.

Hygiene Connection E-Newsletter

August 2014