Antipsychotic offers new hope for bladder cancer
Bladder cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer in the Netherlands. And it is persistent: in eight out of ten people, the tumour returns after treatment. A remarkable discovery by Dr Gabri van der Pluijm and his team offers new hope. They found that the antipsychotic Penfluridol, which is used to treat schizophrenia, has an inhibitory effect on cancer cells.
Your donation will help Dr Gabri van der Pluijm and his team develop a bladder instillation for cancer patients. This will ensure an initial group of patients receive the treatment.
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You can leave our website to view this video.‘Population studies showed that people with chronic schizophrenia were less likely to develop bladder cancer’, says Dr Van der Pluijm, head of the Urology Research Lab. ‘They often use the antipsychotic Penfluridol. We found in the laboratory that this drug does kill bladder cancer cells. We now want to investigate whether it can be safely administered as a bladder instillation. If that turns out to be the case, we will start giving it to a larger group of patients.’
A major advantage of Penfluridol is that it is an existing and approved drug. That could make it available faster and cheaper. ‘In a large proportion of patients receiving the current therapy, the tumour often returns’, says Van der Pluijm. ‘It would be wonderful if we could use an existing drug to reduce the number of courses of treatment.’