Swedish scientists reported in the American Cancer Society Journal of Natural Products that cardiac glycosides, which are a family of naturally derived drugs which are used to treat congestive heart failure and arrhythmia, show anti-tumor activity against colon cancer cells.
There is little known how these drugs work as potential anti-cancer agents. These scientists screened several of these glycosides in colon cancer cell lines, and they found that the drugs were all effective, to varying degrees, at killing the cancer cells. The sensitivity, however, was rather low when compared to that of other cancer cell types reported previously.
Several of the drugs also showed increased anticancer activity when combined with certain drugs used for standard chemotherapy. The findings suggest that these heart drugs may affect colon cancer outcome when used alone or combination with conventional chemotherapy drugs.
These drugs are found in the leaves of the oriental foxglove plant and contain digitoxin, a drug used to treat heart disease.
These are very early results and may trigger more research in this family of drugs for further development.