A Common Asthma Drug May Help the Immune System Fight Cancer Again
Researchers have discovered that an asthma drug, montelukast, may help the immune system combat cancer by blocking a specific pathway used by tumors. This drug has shown promise in slowing tumor growth and restoring the immune system's ability to fight various cancers, including aggressive types like triple-negative breast cancer. The findings suggest that montelukast could be quickly tested in clinical trials due to its established safety profile.
- ▪Montelukast, a generic asthma drug, can block the CysLTR1 pathway that tumors use to suppress immune attacks.
- ▪In preclinical models, the drug slowed tumor growth and helped tumors respond to immunotherapy again.
- ▪Patients with higher CysLTR1 activity had poorer responses to immunotherapy and worse survival rates.
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Some tumors do more than hide from the immune system. They can actually manipulate immune cells into helping cancer survive and spread. Now, researchers say an asthma drug may be able to interrupt that process.In a new study published in Nature Cancer, researchers at Northwestern Medicine found that many tumors appear to use a molecule called CysLTR1 to suppress immune attacks. When researchers blocked that pathway using montelukast in preclinical models, the generic version of the asthma drug Singulair, tumor growth slowed across several cancer types, and some tumors began responding to immunotherapy again.This could be especially important for aggressive cancers like triple-negative breast cancer, where immunotherapy often does not work as well as doctors hope.“When we turned off this…
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