Growth of Aggressive Cancer Can Be Slowed By a Common Blood Pressure Drug: Research

In a surprising turn of scientific discovery, a longstanding blood pressure medication may offer new hope in the fight against fast-growing cancers. Recent laboratory research has revealed that hydralazine, a drug used for decades to treat hypertension, can significantly interrupt the proliferation of certain aggressive tumor cells.

The key to this breakthrough lies in an enzyme called 2-aminoethanethiol dioxygenase (ADO), which plays a vital role in helping cancer cells survive under oxygen-deprived conditions. In tumors like glioblastoma, one of the most lethal forms of brain cancer, the rapid cellular growth often outpaces the oxygen supply. Under such stress, ADO steps in as a sort of oxygen sensor, enabling malignant cells to adapt and survive.

Using advanced X-ray crystallography, researchers mapped precisely how hydralazine binds to ADO. Their findings showed that the drug effectively shuts off the enzyme’s activity, disrupting its ability to support cancer cells in low-oxygen environments. This mechanistic insight offers a promising explanation for why hydralazine could affect cancer cell behavior so profoundly.

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In experiments with glioblastoma cell cultures, treatment with hydralazine didn’t kill the cancer cells outright. Instead, it pushed them into cellular senescence, a state more like dormancy than destruction. In this condition, the cells stop dividing but remain alive—a strategy that could prove valuable in managing tumors that are notoriously difficult to eradicate.

One of the most significant advantages is that hydralazine is already FDA-approved, meaning its safety profile is well understood and documented. Because of this, repurposing it for cancer therapy could be faster and more cost-effective than developing a completely new drug from scratch.

Despite the excitement, experts caution that these results are preliminary. All of the research has so far been conducted in isolated cell cultures- not in living animals or humans. Before hydralazine can be moved into clinical trials for cancer treatment, scientists must establish not only its effectiveness in more complex biological systems but also its safety in that new context.

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Researchers emphasize that although the findings are compelling, they don’t yet represent a cure or a ready-to-use cancer therapy. Rather, this discovery opens a promising new avenue for drug repurposing, leveraging an older, widely available medication for hypertension in the quest to treat one of the most formidable types of cancer.

As the next steps, the scientific community is likely to launch in-vivo studies to test hydralazine’s effects in animals, followed by carefully designed clinical trials. If successful, this repurposed drug could become a powerful ally in slowing aggressive tumor growth and potentially improving outcomes for patients with cancers that currently have few effective treatments.

Note- Researchers emphasize that this is an early-stage finding, not yet a clinical treatment.