Agent induces apoptosis to kill cancerous and precancerous cervical cells.(difluoromethylornithine)

2002 MAY 30 - (NewsRx.com & NewsRx.net) -- by Sonia Nichols, senior medical writer - A new agent now being tested in phase II clinical trials of patients with cervical cancer kills not only cancerous cells but also precancerous cells by inducing them to commit programmed cell death, or apoptosis.

The agent, difluoromethylornithine (DFMO), is an antiangiogenic therapy that also inhibits the action of the enzyme ornithine decarboxylase, according to the authors of a multicenter research study. In preliminary trials to establish the drug's safety, it has reduced cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) 3 lesions by half, the researchers say. The group has now elucidated the way DFMO works by studying immortalized cervical cells and cervical cancer cells grown in culture.

Working at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Changping Zou and colleagues tested the effects of DMFO in cancerous and noncancerous cervical cells grown in monolayer as well as in nonliquid medium and determined that it inhibited cell growth in both culture environments.

"The immortalized cervical epithelial cell lines were more sensitive than the cervical cancer cell lines to DFMO's growth inhibitory effect," Zou and coauthors stated.

For the IC[subscript]50 (50% growth inhibition), up to five times more DFMO was required to inhibit cervical cancer cell growth than was required to inhibit immortalized ...