In 2011, MD Anderson received a $150 million gift — the largest in its history — from the Khalifa Bin Zayed Al Nahyan Foundation.
Tracking down the molecular details of how stress accelerates tumor growth and progression is pointing to a potential new role for a class of drugs used to treat cardiovascular disease and related conditions.
Years of research by Anil Sood, M.D., professor in Gynecologic Medical Oncology and Cancer Biology, show that stress hormones fuel progression of ovarian and other cancers, and that beta-blockers might be a new way to stifle that effect.
“Beta-blockers treat a variety of conditions, such as heart disease, high blood pressure, glaucoma and migraines, targeting a receptor protein in heart muscle that causes the heart to beat harder and faster when activated by stress hormones,” Sood says. “Our research has shown that the same activation helps ovarian cancer progress and spread, so these drugs might have a new role for cancer.”
Sood’s findings include:
- When mice with ovarian cancer are stressed, their tumors grow and spread more quickly, but the effect can be blocked by the beta-blocker propranolol.
- Chronic stress triggers a chain of molecular events that protects breakaway ovarian cancer cells from automatic destruction. Heightened levels of the fight-or-flight hormones epinephrine and norepinephrine permit malignant cells to safely leave the primary tumor — a necessary step in cancer metastasis and progression — and avoid a cell-death mechanism called anoikis.
- When norepinephrine hits its target — the beta-adrenergic (ADRB) receptor — on tumor cells, it activates Src, a master regulator of cancer cell survival proteins, through another protein called PKA. Stress-activated Src is like a dam opening, only the flood is a chain reaction inside cells that promotes cell survival, mobility, invasion of neighboring tissue and creation of new blood vessels to supply
the tumor.
Beta-blockers plug the ADRB receptor, blocking activation by norepinephrine and other hormones. Norepinephrine is the most abundant stress hormone found in ovaries.
Sood and colleagues analyzed data on outcomes of cancer patients treated with beta-blocker drugs from the Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System. They found that mortality in patients treated with a beta-blocker fell by an average of 17% across all major cancer types, with a nearly 15% decrease in mortality among patients with ovarian and cervical cancers.
Sood continues to study biological mechanisms that may be affected by stress with the aim of identifying cancer patients who are most likely to benefit from beta-blockers and other stress interventions.
Related stories:
More Stories From Conquest
The beginning of end tobacco
Tobacco use is one of the greatest public health menaces of our time, causing 30% of all cancer cases in the United States.
The immuno man
James Allison is a blues-loving scientist from a small town in South Texas who shook off the immunotherapy naysayers and proved the human immune system could fight cancer.
From patent to patients
Steven Frank is the doctor, inventor and entrepreneur who took the uncertainty out of a cancer treatment
Surgically removing cancer risk
For Denise Megarity, the decision to have her ovaries removed at a young age — and thereby dramatically reduce her risk of multiple cancers — was an empowering one
99 problems but cancer ain’t one
Megan Silianoff writes about the amazing ways her life has changed since her ovarian cancer diagnosis. She considers her illness a blessing. Without it, she’s not sure she would’ve found her true calling.
The adrenaline-fueled life
Reza Mehran, M.D., never stops challenging himself. Whether in the air, operating room or war zone, this surgeon is always up for a challenge. That’s just how he operates.
The ultimate cure for cancer
The American Cancer Society and MD Anderson have been allies in the cancer war for decades.