Could Botox Injections Suppress Cancer Growth?

Cancer growth may be thwarted from Botox injection treatment, according to a recent study.

Since the vagal nerve influences gastric tumor growth, researchers discovered a new approach that cuts off the nerve signals catalyzing cancer stem cell multiplication.

“We believe this treatment is a good treatment because it can be used locally and it targets the cancer stem cells. The Botox can be injected through gastroscopy and it only requires the patient to stay in the hospital for a few hours,” said Duan Chen, MD, PhD, the study’s co-author and a professor at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
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For the study, researchers used 4 methods to sever the link between the gastric tumor and the vagal nerve: injecting local Botox (which blocked the vagus nerve’s neurotransmitter), administering a drug to interfere with the neurotransmitter’s receptor, eliminating the receptor gene, and surgically cutting the vagus nerve (vagotomy).

The results showed that the Botox injections and local vagotomy successfully suppressed gastric tumor growth.

Investigators noted that denervation could work best in conjunction with traditional chemotherapy; they noticed that the lack of nerve signals creates more vulnerability (in cancer cells) to chemotherapy.

Chen and colleagues found that the connection between nerve and tumor growth could be similar in other tumors such as prostate cancer. Researchers said further studies on that would need to be conducted.

The complete study is published in the August issue of Science Translational Medicine.

-Michelle Canales

References:

Zhao CM, Hayakawa Y, Kodama Y, et al. Denervation suppresses gastric tumorigenesis. Sci Transl Med. 2014 August [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1126/scitranslmed.3009569.

Norwegian University of Science and Technology. Treating cancer with botox. August 18, 2014. http://gemini.no/en/2014/08/treating-cancer-with-botox. Accessed August 21, 2014