Abstract
The present report describes our clinical findings regarding the use of high dose intravenous insulin in cancer patients, as a means to deplete the blood compartment of glucose molecules. The purpose of this intervention is to create a favorable physiological state for the competitive inhibition of several rate-limiting enzymes within cancer cells, with structural analogues that behave as antimetabolites. Regardless of their histological origin, virtually all solid tumors reported on to date (February 2020) are found to be hypercaptant in PET-CT scans following the intravenous injection of 2-¹⁸fluoro-deoxy-D-glucose. Most solid tumors display a hypermetabolic phenotype (SUVmax ≥ 3), with marked overexpression of glucose transporters (GLUTs) in the outer membrane of their anaplastic cells subpopulations. The fact that neoplastic cells also overexpress glycolytic, fermentative and glutaminolytic enzymes up to an order of magnitude relative to healthy cells further strengthens the argument for a competitive inhibition with antimetabolites. The rationale for a deep, systemic deprivation of glucose was suggested by classical enzymological work concerning competitive inhibition (the Woods principle), and our group has shown that a metabolic intervention with structural analogues of glucose and pyruvate is strongly enhanced by a systemic suppression of the natural substrates of hexokinase 2 (HK-2) and lactic dehydrogenase isozyme A (LDH-A), followed by the timely introduction of several non- metabolizable analogues. Sustained, deep hypoglycemia (<10mg/dl) under physiological ketosis provides an advantageous context for antitumor treatment with structural analogues of glucose, pyruvate and glutamine. Data provided in this report demonstrates the feasibility and safety of the procedure.
Highlights
The present report describes our clinical findings regarding the use of high dose intravenous insulin in cancer patients, as a means to deplete the blood compartment of glucose molecules
A favorable metabolic context for pharmacological interventions against cancer with glucose and glutamine analogues has been devised by our clinical research group [1]
The aim of this intervention is the onset of an acute energy disturbance in neoplastic tissues, sparing healthy organs. Such an approach is an exploitation of the functional asymmetry between neoplastic cells and healthy neighboring cells with a therapeutic aim. Evidence of such functional asymmetry is readily apparent in positron emission tomography studies (PET-CT), and references to cancer hypermetabolic phenotype are abundant in the literature [3,4,5,6]
Summary
The present report describes our clinical findings regarding the use of high dose intravenous insulin in cancer patients, as a means to deplete the blood compartment of glucose molecules The purpose of this intervention is to create a favorable physiological state for the competitive inhibition of several rate-limiting enzymes within cancer cells, with structural analogues that behave as antimetabolites. From the clinical perspective of competitive inhibition of the rate-limiting enzymes of solid tumors, it is semiologically relevant that neoplastic tissues show such a strong avidity for glucose, as ascertained semi-quantitatively by SUVmax calculations [Mbq Region of Interest/(Mbq injected/lean body mass)] In this regard, PET-CT has provided proof-of-concept for a metabolic approach to cancer treatment.
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