Chronic Digoxin Use Reduces Risk of Prostate Cancer

A paired laboratory and epidemiological study has identified the cardiac drug digoxin as the basis for a new chemotherapeutic approach for the treatment of prostate cancer.

Investigators at Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD, USA) screened a series of recognized drug compounds for any that would inhibit the growth of prostate cancer cells growing in culture. The screen of 3,187 compounds yielded digoxin as the most potent inhibitory agent.

The investigators then evaluated epidemiological data from studies where incidence of prostate cancer was linked to digoxin use. This evaluation produced a cohort of about 47,000 men aged 40-75 who had participated in Harvard's Health Professionals Follow-up Study from 1986 through 2006 and did not have a cancer diagnosis before 1986.

Results published in the April 3, 2011, online edition of the journal Cancer Discovery revealed that regular digoxin users - especially users for at least 10 years - had a lower prostate cancer risk. Thus, digoxin was both highly potent in inhibiting prostate cancer cell growth in vitro, and its use was associated with a 25% lower prostate cancer risk.

"We realized that combining our laboratory and epidemiologic approaches could reduce the possibility that results on the candidate drugs might be due to chance,” said first author Dr. Elizabeth Platz, professor of epidemiology, oncology, and urology at Johns Hopkins University. "Adding the epidemiology study to the drug screen step provided an assessment of the drug's potential activity in people.”

Despite the promising findings presented in this study, digoxin was not shown to prevent prostate cancer, and the authors do not suggest the drug be used to prevent the disease. "This is not a drug you would give to healthy people,” said Dr. Platz.

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