Amiloride-Carbidopa-Flumazenil-Drug Combo Inhibits Growth Of Aggressive Tumors
September 13, 2006 by Gloria Gamat
Filed under Diseases & Conditions
The unusual combination of a diuretic (amiloride), a Parkinson’s disease medication (carbidopa) and a drug ordinarily used to reverse the effect of sedatives (flumazenil), in a Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis research was surprisingly found to inhibit the growth of aggressive prostate tumors in laboratory mice.
The said study was not just a capricious intent (of pulling random drugs from the shelf) by the researchers but a study led by Joseph Ippolito that demonstrated the importance of looking at tumor metabolism.
According to senior author Jeffrey I. Gordon, M.D, director of the Center for Genome Sciences at the School of Medicine:
“Using a broad array of technology, we’ve obtained a view of the tumor cells’ metabolome (the set of small-molecule metabolites found within cells) and revealed aspects that were not expected and could be exploited.”
The findings on the said amiloride-carbidopa-flumazenil combination were published in a recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Read more details of the study from Washington University School of Medicine.
