Adding a fatty acid inhibitor to chemotherapy regimens could improve treatment efficacy for some oncology patients, according to a study conducted at Ann Arbor-based Michigan Medicine.
There are zero fatty acid synthase inhibitors currently FDA-approved for cancer, the researchers said, but numerous studies have shown FAS enzymes as promising targets in breast, lung and pancreatic cancers.
Researchers at the system sought to find out if triple-negative breast cancer patients — who have a high risk of developing brain metastases — might benefit from fatty acid synthase inhibitors. They performed drug-screening assays to test their theory.
The study discovered that a fatty acid synthase inhibitor synergized with a topoisomerase inhibitor, according to findings published in npj Breast Cancer.
"In addition to improving the efficacy of chemotherapy, the findings also show that inhibiting fatty acid synthase alone at low doses decreases cells’ ability to move and spread throughout the body," Michigan Medicine - University of Michigan said in a July 30 news release.