Cancer is an extremely complex set of diseases, and while the medical community has certainly made great strides in developing treatment, there is still a long way to go. Many avenues of research are looking at combinations of treatments as a way to catch cancer cells off guard. Along those lines, Eureka Alert released a press release from Warwick University, that have recently been studying a new combination therapy.
Unless you've memorized the periodic table of elements, you're probably not very familiar with the metal Ruthenium. It's a transition metal in the same chemical group as platinum, and has been part of an experimental cancer drug that the University has been testing. It works by disrupting the more sensitive chemical balance inside cancer cells, and interfering with their ability to produce energy.
However, that's not even the big news. Recently the researchers paired their metal-based drug with a naturally occurring compound called sodium formate. Sodium formate is derived from formic acid, found in a variety of organisms including ants and stinging nettles. As mentioned on Medical News Today, sodium formate is already a safe and approved food preservative under the name E-237. In high concentrations in can be used as a diuretic, but under normal doses there appear to be no adverse effects to human health. Unrefined formic acid from stinging nettles may have also assisted medieval Europeans in treating urinary tract infections and hayfever.
Back to modern times where the combination of sodium formate and cancer drug is boosting its effectiveness 50 folds, when tested on ovarian cancer cells. Adding the sodium formate seemed to catalyze the disruptive reaction the drug already uses to kill cancer. This enhanced reaction does however use up the sodium formate faster than the drug. Fortunately the method they used to bond the compounds allows for additional doses of the sodium formate. Meaning that the drug can become extra potent for multiple cycles without adding more of the metal based drug.
It'll be a while before this reaches clinical trials but the results are very promising, and the researchers hope this combination and others like it will become more prevalence. Not only does this combination produce a more pronounced effect, but it allows for lower doses when humans are treated. This will hopefully reduce the harmful side effects that are a hallmark of cancer treatment.
