In the lab, multiple myeloma cells are killed by drugs similar to existing anti-diabetes drugs like Avandia or Actos, according to researchers at the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry, New York.

Multiple myeloma is an uncommon cancer that arises in the bone marrow. Multiple myeloma cells express a receptor termed PPAR gamma, and so-called “glitazone” anti-diabetes drugs bind to this receptor.

“We have discovered that human multiple myeloma cells die in response to existing anti-diabetic drugs,” senior investigator Dr. Richard P. Phipps told Reuters Health. “Such drugs might prove useful to treating multiple myeloma, which is essentially incurable”.

In the medical journal Clinical Immunology, Phipps and his colleagues note that exposing multiple melanoma cells to a naturally occurring PPAR gamma-binding molecule triggered cell death.

This was also the case when the cells were treated with the diabetes drug ciglitazone. Other similar anti-diabetic drugs include rosiglitazone (Avandia) and pioglitazone (Actos).

The researchers also found that the action of the PPAR gamma-binding drugs was greatly enhanced by the presence of the vitamin A-like compound 9-cis retinoic acid.

Nevertheless, co-investigator Dr. Steven Bernstein stressed in a statement that further investigation of the action of glitazones is required “before clinical trials are warranted.”

SOURCE: Clinical Immunology, November 2004.