Friday Oct. 28, 2016 (foodconsumer.org) -- A new study suggests that isothiocyanates used along with Lapatinib can increase the effectiveness of the drug against breast cancer cells to reduce the risk of metastasis.
Lapatinib is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor that interrupts both the HER2/neu and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) pathways. The drug is used in combinational therapy to treat HER2-positive breast cancer or advanced or metastatic breast cancer whose tumors overexpress HER2.
A common problem with Lapatinib is that long-term exposure to the drug can increase the risk of cancer cells becoming resistant to the drug leading to the loss of the effectiveness of the drug against breast cancer cells.
Authors of this study tested treatments with Lapatinib and one of three types of isothiocyanates, sulforaphane, erucin, and sulforaphene to see how the isothiocyanate affects the efficacy of the drug against both lapatinib-sensitive and lapatinib-resistant breast cancer cells.
In the experiment, both drug resistant and sensitive breast cancer cells were present in the culture but in different proportions. The study showed that lapatinib with any of isothiocyanates significantly decreased cell viability and inhibited migration of both types of breast cancer cells.
In the culture with only drug resistant breast cancer cells, the combinational treatment with erucin and lapatinib most effectively decreased cell viability and motility than treatments with erucin or lapatinib only.
The authors concluded that isothiocyanates particularly erucin may be employed to enhance the effectiveness of Lapatinib against breast cancer to reduce the metastatic risk even when the breast cancer cells are resistant to Lapatinib.
Isothiocyanates are found high in Brussels sprouts, garden cress, mustard greens, turnip, savoy cabbage, and kale. Many other vegetables such as watercress, red cabbage, broccoli, horseradish, cauliflower and bok choy also contain isothiocyanates. (David Liu)
Photo credit: Eric Hunt via wikipedia
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