Common antifungal drug thiabendazole shows promise as cancer therapy

An inexpensive US Food and Drug Administration approved antifungal drug, thiabendazole, slows tumor growth and shows promise as a chemotherapy for cancer. Scientists in the College of Natural Sciences at The University of Texas at Austin made this discovery by exploiting the evolutionary relatedness of yeast, frogs, mice and humans. The generic drug taken orally that has been in clinical use for 40 years as an antifungal. It is not currently used for cancer therapy.

Hye Ji Cha, Edward Marcotte, John Wallingford and colleagues found that the drug destroys newly established blood vessels, making it a "vascular disrupting agent." Their research was published in the journal PLOS Biology. Inhibiting blood vessel, or vascular, growth can be an important chemotherapeutic tool because it starves tumors. Tumors induce new blood vessel formation to feed their out-of-control growth.

In trials using mice, the researchers found that thiabendazole decreased blood vessel growth in fibrosarcoma tumors by more than a half. Fibrosarcomas are cancers of the connective tissue, and they are generally heavily vascularized with blood vessels.