Institute of Physiology, Faculty of Medicine, Comenius University in Bratislava, 813 72 Bratislava, Slovakia.
Biomedical Research Center, Institute of Experimental Endocrinology, Slovak Academy of Sciences, 845 05 Bratislava, Slovakia.
Int J Mol Sci. 2021 Jun 6;22(11):6115. doi: 10.3390/ijms22116115.
Research on the neurobiology of cancer, which lies at the border of neuroscience and oncology, has elucidated the mechanisms and pathways that enable the nervous system to modulate processes associated with cancer initiation and progression. This research has also shown that several drugs which modulate interactions between the nervous system and the tumor micro- and macroenvironments significantly reduced the progression of cancer in animal models. Encouraging results were also provided by prospective clinical trials investigating the effect of drugs that reduce adrenergic signaling on the course of cancer in oncological patients. Moreover, it has been shown that reducing adrenergic signaling might also reduce the incidence of cancer in animal models, as well as in humans. However, even if many experimental and clinical findings have confirmed the preventive and therapeutic potential of drugs that reduce the stimulatory effect of the nervous system on processes related to cancer initiation and progression, several questions remain unanswered. Therefore, the aim of this review is to critically evaluate the efficiency of these drugs and to discuss questions that need to be answered before their introduction into conventional cancer treatment and prevention.
癌症神经生物学研究处于神经科学和肿瘤学的交界处,阐明了神经系统调节与癌症发生和进展相关过程的机制和途径。这项研究还表明,几种调节神经系统与肿瘤微环境和宏环境之间相互作用的药物可显著降低动物模型中癌症的进展。在调查减少儿茶酚胺信号对肿瘤患者癌症进程影响的前瞻性临床试验中,也提供了令人鼓舞的结果。此外,已经表明,减少儿茶酚胺信号也可能降低动物模型以及人类的癌症发病率。然而,即使许多实验和临床发现证实了减少神经系统对与癌症发生和进展相关过程的刺激作用的药物的预防和治疗潜力,但仍有几个问题尚未得到解答。因此,本综述的目的是批判性地评估这些药物的疗效,并讨论在将其引入常规癌症治疗和预防之前需要回答的问题。