An iron-binding drug that is already approved for treatment of other diseases could provide a novel way to attack ovarian tumors, according to a new study led by Weill Cornell Medicine researchers. The preclinical study, which combined the analysis of human ovarian tumors and animal models of the disease, was published on July 29 in Cancer Discovery, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research.
Iron is essential for multiple cellular processes, so actively multiplying cancer cells often need larger amounts of it than normal cells. That’s especially true in ovarian cancers.
“We thought that was a perfect opportunity to try a new approach, because there is an FDA-approved iron-chelating drug called deferiprone that has been successfully used for other diseases with abnormal iron accumulation,” said senior author Dr. Juan Cubillos-Ruiz, the William J. Ledger, M.D., Distinguished Associate Professor for Infection and Immunology in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Weill Cornell Medicine. Iron-chelating drugs bind tightly to iron, preventing cells from using it.
