Dr. Katherine Borden of the Institute for Research in Immunology and Cancer (IRIC) of the Université de Montréal, has recently published a study in the journal Blood, demonstrating that ribavirin, a common anti-viral drug, suppresses the activities of a gene linked to making cells cancerous. It turns out that the eIF4E gene is dysregulated in 30 percent of cancers including breast, prostate, head and neck, colon and stomach cancer - and suppressing its activity yielded "striking clinical improvements ... even complete remissions".

The study was a joint project between Dr. Borden's research group, who monitored molecular events in trial patients, and Dr. Sarit Assouline of the Segal Cancer Centre, Jewish General Hospital, who led the clinical part of the trial.

The next challenge for this team is to overcome the resistance that develops over time to ribavirin. "Combination therapy with chemotherapeutic agents may enhance the efficacy of this treatment," explains Borden, "Trials in the near future are planned to overcome this and we are looking forward to more complete remissions. We also hope to test whether ribavirin is as effective in the treatment of other cancers with dysregulated eIF4E. Our laboratory studies suggest this is likely."

Source: http://www.iric.ca/Actualites/PR_Borden_Ribavirin_May09_En.htm