Published on
updated on
Reading 2 min.
Prostate cancer is most common in men. When resistance to traditional treatments appears, vitamin D could well provide a surprising solution…
A small dose of vitamin D and presto! It could overcome resistance to chemotherapy in advanced cases of prostate cancer. But be careful, not just any vitamin D.
Vitamin D to the rescue of treatments?
Prostate cancer is the most common cancer among men. In its advanced forms, it becomes a master at resisting treatments, including hormone therapy and chemotherapy. But what would you say if vitamin D added its two cents (or calcium, should we say) to restart the battle?
Usually, vitamin D is known for its role in calcium and phosphorus metabolism, and its contribution to strong bones. But this little vitamin also has much more interesting anti-inflammatory and antiproliferative properties. The problem? The doses necessary to benefit from its anti-tumor benefits risk disrupting the calcium balance of patients.
To get around this problem, researchers have started to develop vitamin D analogues, improved versions, which boost its anti-inflammatory or anti-tumor effects without affecting our calcium levels. Calcipotriol, for example, is already used to treat psoriasis. But what about prostate cancer?
A promising synergy with chemotherapy
Gilles Laverny, a researcher at the Institute of Genetics and Molecular and Cellular Biology in Strasbourg, and his team had a genius idea: testing a vitamin D analogue, Xe4MeCF3, on cancer cells resistant to castration (CRPC), this dreaded form of prostate cancer. Result ? On its own, it failed to stop cell proliferation, just like docetaxel, a drug used in chemotherapy.
But when they are administered together, it’s a different story: Xe4MeCF3 restored the effectiveness of docetaxel! In other words, this vitamin D analogue was able to break down the resistance of cancer cells to chemo. And beyond these results obtained on cell cultures, in mice grafted with CRPC cells, the effect was the same.
Towards a new therapeutic strategy?
Gilles Laverny and his team laid an important foundation stone with this discovery. However, it will still be necessary to test the effectiveness of Xe4MeCF3 on other types of cells and perhaps even explore other vitamin D analogues, because, as a reminder, more than 4,000 versions already exist. Enough to heat up the laboratories!
The good news is that vitamin D is already well known and controlled, which facilitates possible clinical studies. “It could be interesting that a clinical study is already carried out, to compare the prognosis of patients with CRPC treated conventionally, alone or in combination with vitamin D administered at non-deleterious doses for the regulation of calcium in the body” concludes the researcher.
Who knows, one day, CRPC patients might see their treatment accompanied by a little vitamin D – and this time, it wouldn’t be just for their bones!