The chemotherapy drug irinotecan creates DNA damage leading to cell death and is used to treat colorectal cancer, among other cancer types. Now a University of Colorado Cancer Center study presented at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2019 suggests a way to make irinotecan work even better: When researchers added the experimental drug AZD0156 to irinotecan, colorectal cancer cells and models of human colorectal cancer tumors grown in mice both showed significantly more cancer cell inhibition than with irinotecan used alone. An ongoing phase 1 clinical trial is currently testing the combination against advanced solid tumors (NCT02588105).
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