Cancer Progression Stopped With Common Heart Drug Propranolol

The common heart drug propranolol may help stop the progression of angiosarcoma--malignant tumors of the inner lining of blood vessels--according to a recent study. 

Researchers at Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) El Paso treated a man with an enlarging lesion on his left check, forehead and scalp, whose biopsy revealed a case of angiosarcoma. They decided to treat him with propranolol. 

Though the beta-blocker works to treat tremors, angina (chest pain), hypertension (high blood pressure), heart rhythm disorders, and other heart or circulatory conditions and is also used to treat or prevent heart attack and sometimes reduce the severity and frequency of migraine headaches, researchers noted a very positive response the treatment of this cancer patient. 

They discovered that after using the drug for just one month, highly lethal tumors from the condition ceased expansion and no longer showed evidence of enlargement or extension. Furthermore, with six months of the use of propranolol along with chemotherapy and radiation-many patient's tumors were undetectable.

What makes the use of the drug even more promising is that the cost is so much lower than many prescription drug therapies used to treat sarcomas that can be up to $10,000 a month, researchers say. Propranolol, on the other hand, is only about $4 a month.

"If this finding extends to a broader patient population, administration of propranolol may be a major advancement in the treatment of angiosarcomas," the study authors noted, in a news release. 

Resarchers are currently conducting a Phase II clinical trial to test the effectiveness of propranolol in decreasing tumor growth in breast cancer patients. If the results are positive, the trial may expand to include other types of tumors.

However, propranolol, like every medication, does come with side-effects. Click here to learn more, courtesy of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.  

The study is published in JAMA Dermatology. 

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