Cancer recurrence is arguably one of the most difficult hurdles in treating cancer. Recurrences are caused by cancerous cells in the body that have survived treatment and have begun to reproduce again in the body. Usually if cancer cells have survived previous treatments, they are harder to treat because they have gained resistance to at least some medications. A recent study done has found a promising experimental drug, Quisinostat, that may help overcome this big problem.
Quisinostat works by increasing the amount of a specific protein (histone H1.0) in cancer cells. The protein slows tumor growth. The team of researchers in the study used Quisinostat on mice with tumors and on human cancer cells. Tumors in mice treated with Quisinostat, stopped growing and that the human cancer cells stopped reproducing as well. These promising results indicate that this drug may have the potential to reduce the chance of cancer recurring in patients after treatment is done. Importantly, Quisinostat is not specific to any one type of cancer. This drug could be used universally. Although further studies must be done to determine long-term effects of this drug, it shows great potential and may be a potent weapon in the fight against cancer in the near future.
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