University of Missouri researchers have proven that a drug used as a cholesterol lowering agent not only halts breast cancer progression, but can kill cancerous cells, offering new promise to the one-in-eight women who will suffer from breast cancer in their lives.
The drug therapy may even be more attractive than now-popular anti-hormone medicines, such as tamoxifen, because when tumor cells develop resistance to anti-hormone therapies the tumor cells continue to grow and spread, but because tumor cells need cholesterol to grow, the cholesterol-lowering drug starves the tumor cells. Not only that, cholesterol also contributes to anti-hormone resistance because cholesterol is converted into hormones in tumor cells, therefore lowering cholesterol should help hormone therapy.
The study, “Cholesterol biosynthesis inhibitors as potent novel anti-cancer agents: suppression of hormone-dependent breast cancer by the oxidosqualene cyclase inhibitor RO 48-8071,” was funded by a grant from the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Program and the National Institutes of Health. The study was published in Breast Cancer Research and Treatment.
“Because tumor cells grow rapidly they need to synthesize more cholesterol,” said Salman Hyder, lead researcher on the project. “Scientists working to cure breast cancer often seek out alternative targets that might slow or stop the progression of the disease, including the elimination of the cancerous cells. In our study, we targeted the production of cholesterol in cancer cells leading to death of breast cancer cells.”
The drug has already been tested on human breast cancer cells, and was found effective in reducing breast cancer cell growth. It also killed the cancer cells in many cases.
The research findings indicated that an estrogen receptor which causes tumor cells to grow was destroyed by the drug. This is 
thought to be the reason for the success of the drug in combating breast cancer.
The drug was then tested on mice with breast cancer and was found effective. The drug reduced the presence of estrogen receptors in the tumor cells.
The research team will next conduct further tests that they hope will lead to a drug that will both fight high cholesterol and breast cancer.
By Day Blakely Donaldson