Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
Review
. 2021 Nov-Dec;35(6):3039-3044.
doi: 10.21873/invivo.12599.

Drug Repositioning With an Anticancer Effect: Contributions to Reduced Cancer Incidence in Susceptible Individuals

Sungpil Yoon  1 , Hyung Sik Kim  1
Affiliations
Review

Drug Repositioning With an Anticancer Effect: Contributions to Reduced Cancer Incidence in Susceptible Individuals

Sungpil Yoon et al. In Vivo. 2021 Nov-Dec.

Abstract

Certain diseases and age groups are associated with a higher incidence of cancer. Cancer prevention can be achieved using repositioned drugs that have anticancer ability, thereby reducing the incidence of cancer in susceptible individuals. This implies that the selection of repositioned drugs can have dual benefits: controlling pre-existing diseases and facilitating cancer prevention. This report outlines the rationale underlying drug repositioning for medications with an anticancer effect and discusses its advantages. We discuss repositioned drugs with anticancer effects that may contribute to cancer prevention in susceptible individuals and the general population with temporary, treatable conditions. The discussion of drug repositioning in this review should facilitate the initiation of clinical trials and lead to therapeutic application of such drugs to reduce the incidence of cancer in susceptible individuals.

Keywords: Drug repositioning; aging; caner prevention; metformin; susceptible individuals.

PubMed Disclaimer

Conflict of interest statement

The Authors declare no conflicts of interest regarding this study.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. Summary of the various patient groups that could benefit from the repositioning of drugs with anticancer effects. These repositioned drugs can contribute to cancer prevention in cancer-susceptible individuals or in the general population. This implies that the selection of repositioned drugs can have dual benefits in controlling pre-existing diseases and facilitating cancer prevention.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Suh S, Kim KW. Diabetes and Cancer: Cancer should be screened in routine diabetes assessment. Diabetes Metab J. 2019;43(6):733–743. doi: 10.4093/dmj.2019.0177. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Yoon S, Wang X, Vongpunsawad S, Tromp G, Kuivaniemi H. Editorial: FDA-approved drug repositioning for P-glycoprotein overexpressing resistant cancer. Front Oncol. 2021;11:632657. doi: 10.3389/fonc.2021.632657. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Campbell JM, Bellman SM, Stephenson MD, Lisy K. Metformin reduces all-cause mortality and diseases of ageing independent of its effect on diabetes control: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Ageing Res Rev. 2017;40:31–44. doi: 10.1016/j.arr.2017.08.003. - DOI - PubMed
    1. Schulten HJ. Pleiotropic effects of metformin on cancer. Int J Mol Sci. 2018;19(10):2850. doi: 10.3390/ijms19102850. - DOI - PMC - PubMed
    1. Drew DA, Cao Y, Chan AT. Aspirin and colorectal cancer: the promise of precision chemoprevention. Nat Rev Cancer. 2016;16(3):173–186. doi: 10.1038/nrc.2016.4. - DOI - PMC - PubMed