Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry, College of Clinical Pharmacy, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box 1982, Dammam 31441, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia.
College of Clinical Pharmacy, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box 1982, Dammam 31441, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia.
Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Nov 19;25(22):12441. doi: 10.3390/ijms252212441.
Cancer ranks among the primary contributors to global mortality. In 2022, the global incidence of new cancer cases reached about 20 million, while the number of cancer-related fatalities reached 9.7 million. In Saudi Arabia, there were 13,399 deaths caused by cancer and 28,113 newly diagnosed cases of cancer. Drug repurposing is a drug discovery strategy that has gained special attention and implementation to enhance the process of drug development due to its time- and money-saving effect. It involves repositioning existing medications to new clinical applications. Cancer treatment is a therapeutic area where drug repurposing has shown the most prominent impact. This review presents a compilation of medications that have been repurposed for the treatment of various types of cancers. It describes the initial therapeutic and pharmacological classes of the repurposed drugs and their new applications and mechanisms of action in cancer treatment. The review reports on drugs from various pharmacological classes that have been successfully repurposed for cancer treatment, including approved ones and those in clinical trials and preclinical development. It stratifies drugs based on their anticancer repurpose as multi-type, type-specific, and mechanism-directed, and according to their pharmacological classes. The review also reflects on the future potential that drug repurposing has in the clinical development of novel anticancer therapies.
癌症是全球主要死亡原因之一。2022 年，全球新癌症病例数约为 2000 万，癌症相关死亡人数达到 970 万。在沙特阿拉伯，有 13399 人死于癌症，28113 人被诊断出患有癌症。药物重定位是一种药物发现策略，由于其节省时间和金钱的效果，它引起了特别的关注和实施。它涉及将现有药物重新定位用于新的临床应用。癌症治疗是药物重定位最能产生显著影响的治疗领域。这篇综述介绍了已被重新用于治疗各种类型癌症的药物。它描述了重新定位药物的初始治疗和药理学类别，以及它们在癌症治疗中的新应用和作用机制。该综述报告了各种药理学类别的药物在癌症治疗方面的成功重定位，包括已批准的药物和临床试验和临床前开发中的药物。它根据癌症的重定位类型、药物的药理学类别以及药物的作用机制对药物进行分层。该综述还反映了药物重定位在新型抗癌疗法的临床开发中的未来潜力。
