VIDEO: Could Viagra and a flu shot kill cancer?
Could Viagra and a flu shot kill cancer?
Published Monday 21 May 2018
By Catharine Paddock PhD Fact checked by Jasmin Collier
After tumor removal surgery, treatment with erectile dysfunction drugs and a flu vaccine may help to stop the cancer returning.
These drugs, aided by the flu vaccine, remove a block to the immune system that can sometimes result from cancer surgery and also give it a boost.
This was the conclusion that researchers at the University of Ottawa in Canada came to after they tested the effect of tadalafil (Cialis), sildenafil (Viagra), and an inactivated version of the flu vaccine Agriflu in mouse models of post-surgery metastasis.
These common medications could help to prevent cancer returning.
In a paper now published in the journal OncoImmunology, they report how the unusual combination reduced cancer spread in the mice by over 90 percent.
A clinical trial to test the effects and safety of the treatment in humans is already under way.
Surgery can promote metastasis
"Surgery," says senior study author Rebecca C. Auer, an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology, "is very effective in removing solid tumors."
But, as she and her colleagues explain in their paper, "cancer surgery" can also block the immune system's ability to eliminate any remaining cancer cells, which can then spread to form new, secondary tumors in a process known as metastasis.
