Benefits of metronomic therapy targeting muscarinic receptors in breast cancer as a sensitizer of cells to classic chemotherapy with paclitaxel

SALEM , AGUSTINA; SANCHEZ, Y; LASERNA, L; WILLIAMS, M; ALEJANDRO ESPAÑOL; MARÍA E. SALES

Congreso; LXII reunion anual de la sociedad argentina de investigación clínica; 2017

Abstract: Resistance to chemotherapy is a critical problem in cancer treatment and is believed to be due to the presence of a sub-population of cells named cancer stem cells (CSC). It has been postulated that metronomic therapy (administration of low doses of drugs with short inter-dose intervals) could be a useful strategy to over-come the resistance to traditional chemotherapeutic regimens. Here, we analyzed the effect of a combination of subthreshold concentrations of carbachol (CARB) (10-9M) with paclitaxel (PX) (10-11M) on MCF-7 breast cells, derived from a human luminal tumor. The unique addition of the combination during 40 h increased cell death by 47±6 % (p