New Drug Offers the Potential to Eliminate Breast Cancer Tumors in One Dose

What Happened?

A new drug developed by research scientists at the University of Illinois has demonstrated unprecedented effectiveness in eliminating breast cancer tumors in recent studies.

According to researchers the new drug compound, currently only known as ErSO-TFPy, completely eliminated breast cancer tumors in mice with a singe dose.

The research was recently published in ACS Central Science under the title ‘Single Dose of a Small Molecule Leads to Complete Regressions of Large Breast Tumors in Mice.’

Why it Matters

In the United States breast cancer is the second leading cause of cancer-related mortality in women. Annual cases exceed 250,000, leading to more than 40,000 deaths per year.

Currently treatment consists of surgery and long-term medication for five to ten years.

The American Chemical Society reported that:

‘This research marks a significant departure from traditional breast cancer treatments, which often come with debilitating side effects including osteoporosis, blood clots, and sexual dysfunction. These side effects frequently lead patients to abandon their treatment regimens, with an estimated 20-30% discontinuing therapy entirely.’

The American Chemical Society  report continued:

‘An ideal anticancer therapy would be effective against recurrent and refractory disease with minimal dosing; however, there is little precedent for marked tumor regression with a single dose of a small molecule therapeutic. Herein we report ErSO-TFPy as a small molecule that induces quantitative or near-quantitative regression of tumors in multiple mouse models of breast cancer with a single dose. Importantly, this effect is robust and independent of tumor size with eradication of even very large tumors observed.’

Eliminating breast cancer tumors with a single dose could offer a number of important benefits for individuals and society.

For patients, a single dose cure would eliminate the need for lengthy and often painful treatments which can go on for years. A single dose would also reduce costs, because it would be far less expensive than using multiple medications over a long period of time.

Additionally, a single dose treatment that proves effective could eliminate the need for surgery, which is also expensive and can leave scarring.

The new drug not only worked in extremely low doses, in experiments the compound also worked on estrogen receptor positive breast cancer tumors, which is the most common type of the disease.

How if Affects You

The compound also proved effective in several other animal species such as rats and dogs with no side effects. These results indicate the drug could be safe for human use as well.

As Science Blog reported:

‘While these results in mice are promising, the researchers emphasize that more testing is needed before the drug can be tried in human patients. However, if these findings translate to humans, it could represent a paradigm shift in how we treat breast cancer, potentially offering patients a one-time treatment rather than years of daily medication.’