Title:Revisiting Non-Cancer Drugs for Cancer Therapy
Volume: 16
Issue: 19
Author(s): Eun Ju Yang, Changjie Wu, Yifan Liu, Junfang Lv and Joong Sup Shim
Affiliation:
Keywords:
Cancer, Disulfiram, Doxycycline, Drug repositioning, Existing drugs, Mebendazole, Pyrvinium pamoate, Triclosan.
Abstract: Although tremendous effort has been made over the past century to treat cancer effectively,
the pace of drug development is far behind the increasing rate of cancer incidence and mortality.
There are two major hurdles in anticancer drug development: dose-limiting toxic side effects that reduce
either drug effectiveness or the quality of life of patients and complicated drug development
processes that are costly and time consuming. Drug repositioning has recently gained increasing attention
among cancer researchers as this approach utilizes existing drugs and is significantly cost- and
time-effective. Existing drugs, particularly non-cancer drugs, have favorable safety profiles in humans
and serve as an ever-increasing source for new anticancer drug discovery. Here we review the recent
examples of drug repositioning of existing non-cancer drugs for preclinical and clinical introductions of cancer therapy.
