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The Pharmaceutical Journal
Vol 268 No 7187 p274-79
2 March 2002

Related websites
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) (www.pnas.org)

HIV agents show promise as anti-tumour compounds

Protease inhibitors used to treat human immunodeficiency virus infection are promising anti-tumour and anti-angiogenic agents, new data suggest.

In HIV-1 infected patients, treatment with highly active antiretroviral therapy including at least one protease inhibitor leads to a lower incidence or regression of Kaposi's sarcoma, a malignant tumour of the blood vessels. The tumour is characterised by angiogenesis and inflammatory-cell infiltration.

Italian researchers tested the ability of indinavir and saquinavir to inhibit angiogenesis in mice. They say that proteases are essential for angiogenic and inflammatory processes and show that protease inhibitors have direct anti-angiogenic, anti-Kaposi's sarcoma and anti-tumour effects.

They say that protease inhibitors should now be investigated, alone or in combination with other drugs, for the therapy of other tumours in HIV-1 infected individuals as well as for treating non-HIV Kaposi's sarcoma.

The study is published in Nature Medicine (2002;8:225).

Anti-cancer agent useful in HIV A drug being tested as an adjuvant for the treatment of brain metastases, motexafin gadolinium, has been shown selectively to kill HIV-infected CD4+ helper T cells in vitro. Researchers from Stanford University, California, say that motexafin gadolinium "may have therapeutic utility as an anti-HIV agent". The study is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2002;99:2270).