Cancer Drug Found to Lower Blood Glucose

Dasatinib, an anticancer drug, may have antidiabetic effects comparable to medications used to treat diabetes, and with more research may become a novel therapy for diabetic patients.

Dasatinib may become a novel therapy for diabetic patients, according to new research published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

It is a tyrosine kinase inhibitor used to treat tumors and malignant tissue, and chronic myelogenous leukemia.

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‘Dasatinib lowers serum glucose in patients with pre-existing type 2 diabetes to a greater degree compared to imatinib and it is comparable to first-line diabetic medications like metformin and sulfonylureas.’
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Using a Mayo Clinic database with more than 9 million case histories across 25 years, they determined it may have an antidiabetic effect comparable to or perhaps greater than current medications used to treat type 2 diabetes.

Dasatinib is a senolytic drug, a type of agent first identified at Mayo Clinic that in animal studies targets senescent cells. Senolytic drugs appear to delay, prevent or alleviate age-related changes, chronic diseases and geriatric syndromes.

"Our findings suggest that dasatinib or related senolytic drugs may become diabetic therapies," says Robert Pignolo, M.D., Ph.D., the study's senior author.

"More study is needed to determine whether these findings also are observed in patients with type 2 diabetes mellitus but without underlying malignant disease."

This retrospective study started with a total of 9.3 million individuals who were screened for use of either dasatinib or imatinib.

279 patients were treated with imatinib and 118 with dasatinib, and after further screening, a total of 48 patients were included in the study.

Dasatinib lowers serum glucose in patients with pre-existing type 2 diabetes to a greater degree than imatinib and comparable to first-line diabetic medications such as metformin and sulfonylureas.

Further study is needed to determine whether the antidiabetic effect of dasatinib is due primarily to its senolytic properties, says Dr. Pignolo, director of the Translation and Pharmacology Program at Mayo Clinic's Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on Aging.

If it is, the effectiveness of combining dasatinib with another senolytic drug such as quercetin may be greater than with dasatinib alone.

"This study was really the first proof-of-concept that a senolytic drug may have substantial long-term beneficial effects in humans," Dr. Pignolo says.

"According to research in animal models, it is not necessary to give senolytic drugs continuously, and so patients may need only take a drug such as dasatinib every few weeks, reducing possible side effects."

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