In a surprising discovery, Israeli researchers say they have uncovered the biological mechanism in which Viagra, a drug best known for treating male erectile dysfunction, helps stop the spread of cancer.

In peer-reviewed research, scientists at Weizmann Institute of Science showed that sildenafil, the active ingredient in Viagra, disrupts cancer cells’ cholesterol supply, a crucial material they need to metastasize to other organs.

Dr. Yarden Ariav led the research in Prof. Ayelet Erez’s lab at Weizmann, along with researchers in Prof. Eytan Ruppin’s lab at the US National Cancer Institute, the Innovation Division at Israel’s national health provider Clalit Health Services, and physicians and scientists from Rabin Medical Center.

The scientists’ findings, which appeared inJuly in Cancer Research, were based on mouse cancer models, cultures of cancer cells from human patients, and data collected over 20 years from some 5 million Clalit members.

Survival rates were highest among the patients who had taken both sildenafil and statins, a common class of cholesterol-lowering drugs, six months before their diagnosis, the data showed.

The laboratory tests focused mostly on cancers such as triple-negative breast cancer, melanoma, and lung cancer.

The real-world patient data “confirmed our findings in male mice for lung, colon and prostate cancer,” Erez told The Times of Israel by telephone.

She emphasized that the next step is to “push medicine” by giving women a drug traditionally associated with men’s health.

“The uniqueness and the most important thing that we now need to do is a clinical trial to give Viagra to women with triple-negative breast cancer,” Erez said.

Halting cancer’s spread by stopping cholesterol

Sildenafil was initially developed to treat heart conditions because it opened blood vessels. Then, doctors realized it could also effectively treat male erectile dysfunction, and was approved for that use in 1998.

Now, the research team gave the drug to both male........

© The Times of Israel