Abstract
Research on the neurobiology of cancer, which lies at the border of neuroscience and oncology, has elucidated the mechanisms and pathways that enable the nervous system to modulate processes associated with cancer initiation and progression. This research has also shown that several drugs which modulate interactions between the nervous system and the tumor micro- and macroenvironments significantly reduced the progression of cancer in animal models. Encouraging results were also provided by prospective clinical trials investigating the effect of drugs that reduce adrenergic signaling on the course of cancer in oncological patients. Moreover, it has been shown that reducing adrenergic signaling might also reduce the incidence of cancer in animal models, as well as in humans. However, even if many experimental and clinical findings have confirmed the preventive and therapeutic potential of drugs that reduce the stimulatory effect of the nervous system on processes related to cancer initiation and progression, several questions remain unanswered. Therefore, the aim of this review is to critically evaluate the efficiency of these drugs and to discuss questions that need to be answered before their introduction into conventional cancer treatment and prevention.
Highlights
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There are several reasons that propranolol is the most often used β blocker in the investigation of neurobiology of cancer: (a) it was the first β blocker effectively used in the treatment of coronary artery disease and hypertension and has been used in clinical practice for a long time [41]; (b) its pharmacological properties have been described in detail [42]; (c) there have been several retrospective studies involving patients treated with propranolol that have investigated the effect of β blockers on cancer incidence and progression [43,44,45,46,47,48,49,50,51]; (d) propranolol is readily available, inexpensive, and applicable in animal experiments; (e) as a clinically approved drug, off-label propranolol use by cancer patients in clinical trials is highly likely to be considered acceptable by the approving authorities of these studies
The neurobiology of cancer has revealed new mechanisms and pathways participating in cancer initiation and progression
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Data accumulated in the last few decades have clearly shown that the nervous system plays a significant role in cancer initiation and progression These data are based on combined neuroscientific and oncological research that has created the basis for a new scientific concept, the so-called neurobiology of cancer [1]. Experimental and clinical studies have shown that drugs that modulate the transmission of signals between the nervous system and the tumor micro- and macroenvironments efficiently suppress cancer initiation and progression. These data indicate that pharmacological approaches based on findings of the neurobiology of cancer might be utilized in the treatment of cancer patients as well as in cancer prevention for individuals with an increased cancer risk. The following sections are focused on drugs that are approved for the treatment of non-cancerous diseases, as well as experimental drugs, that, via modulation of nervous system-related signaling and functions, could affect carcinogenesis and cancer growth
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