A STUDY has revealed that adecades-old anti-anxietymedication can improvethe effectiveness of chemo-radiotherapy towards the mostcommon and lethal brain cancer, glioblastoma (GBM).
Brain cancers are typically resistant to treatments used for cancers elsewhere in the body, with the study team explaining that this may be due to the unique physiological features of the brain.
The study found that tumourcells exposed to human cerebrospinal fluid quickly changed identity and became more resistant to radiation, but that the addition of trifluoperazine to the standard treatment regime could improve patient survival.
Trifluoperazine, an anti-anxiety drug used since the 1950s, could re-sensitiseglioblastoma cells to boththerapies, and was found notto harm healthy brain cells.
Australian researchersconcluded in Science Advances that combining trifluoperazine with standard care may improve GBM patient survival.
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