Tatyasaheb Kore College of Pharmacy, Warananagar, Tal: Panhala, Dist: Kolhapur Maharashtra, 416113, India.
Department of Biotechnology, School of Engineering & Technology (SET), Sharda University, Greater Noida, 201310, Uttar Pradesh, India; Department of Biotechnology, School of Applied and Life Sciences (SALS), Uttaranchal University, Dehradun 248007, India.
Eur J Pharmacol. 2022 Jul 5;926:175031. doi: 10.1016/j.ejphar.2022.175031. Epub 2022 May 14.
Skin cancer is one of the most common forms of cancer. Several million people are estimated to have affected with this condition worldwide. Skin cancer generally includes melanoma and non-melanoma with the former being the most dangerous. Chemotherapy has been one of the key therapeutic strategies employed in the treatment of skin cancer, especially in advanced stages of the disease. It could be also used as an adjuvant with other treatment modalities depending on the type of skin cancer. However, there are several shortfalls associated with the use of chemotherapy such as non-selectivity, tumour resistance, life-threatening toxicities, and the exorbitant cost of medicines. Furthermore, new drug discovery is a lengthy and costly process with minimal likelihood of success. Thus, drug repurposing (DR) has emerged as a new avenue where the drug approved formerly for the treatment of one disease can be used for the treatment of another disease like cancer. This approach is greatly beneficial over the de novo approach in terms of time and cost. Moreover, there is minimal risk of failure of repurposed therapeutics in clinical trials. There are a considerable number of studies that have reported on drugs repurposed for the treatment of skin cancer. Thus, the present manuscript offers a comprehensive overview of drugs that have been investigated as repurposing candidates for the efficient treatment of skin cancers mainly melanoma and its oncogenic subtypes, and non-melanoma. The prospects of repurposing phytochemicals against skin cancer are also discussed. Furthermore, repurposed drug delivery via topical route and repurposed drugs in clinical trials are briefed. Based on the findings from the reported studies discussed in this manuscript, drug repurposing emerges to be a promising approach and thus is expected to offer efficient treatment at a reasonable cost in devitalizing skin cancer.
皮肤癌是最常见的癌症之一。据估计，全世界有数百万患者患有这种疾病。皮肤癌通常包括黑色素瘤和非黑色素瘤，前者最为危险。化疗是治疗皮肤癌的主要治疗策略之一，尤其是在疾病的晚期。根据皮肤癌的类型，它也可以与其他治疗方式联合使用作为辅助治疗。然而，化疗存在一些缺点，如非选择性、肿瘤耐药性、危及生命的毒性和药物费用过高。此外，新药的发现是一个漫长而昂贵的过程，成功的可能性极小。因此，药物再利用（DR）已成为一种新的途径，即以前用于治疗一种疾病的药物可用于治疗另一种疾病，如癌症。与从头开始的方法相比，这种方法在时间和成本方面具有巨大优势。此外，重新利用的治疗方法在临床试验中失败的风险极小。有相当数量的研究报告了用于治疗皮肤癌的药物再利用。因此，本文全面概述了已被研究作为有效治疗皮肤癌（主要是黑色素瘤及其致癌亚型和非黑色素瘤）的再利用候选药物。还讨论了重新利用植物化学物质治疗皮肤癌的前景。此外，还简要介绍了经皮途径的再利用药物输送和临床试验中的再利用药物。基于本文中讨论的报告研究的结果，药物再利用似乎是一种很有前途的方法，因此有望以合理的成本提供有效的皮肤癌治疗。
