Methadone increased effects of conventional cancer therapies

Methadone increased effects of conventional cancer therapies / Health News
Research Award Complementary Medicine 2017 for Dr. med. Claudia Friesen
Dr. rer. nat. Claudia Friesen received this year's Research Award Complementary Medicine as part of the Medical Week. The Working Group for Naturopathy, Complementary Medicine, Acupuncture and Environmental Medicine e.V. (NATUM) thus draws on the work presented by Friesen "D, L-methadone increases the cytotoxic effect of conventional cancer therapies".

Methadone supports conventional cancer therapy in its effects. Image: M.Rode photo

The Ulm-based scientist has been studying the effects of methadone on cancer cells for years. In experiments with mice, she was able to show that the opioid can increase the effect of chemotherapeutic agents and thus inhibit cancer growth.

Dr. Claudia Friesen investigated in mice how cancer cells react to D, L-methadone. The focus was on various tumor types - including breast and ovarian cancer.

In laboratory experiments, she observed the following: Since tumor cells have well-developed receptors for opioids on their surface, methadone can easily dock there and trigger various processes. For one, it is able to initiate so-called apoptosis signaling pathways. That is, methadone can make the cancer cell destroy itself. In addition, it acts as a door opener for the cancer drugs used: the uptake of the "cell poison" (the cytostatic agent) in the cell is facilitated and inhibited the transport from the cell, so that the drug in the cancer cells better accumulates.

Taken together, the described effects can accelerate the death of the tumor cell. At the same time, an increased effect of the drugs in the surrounding healthy tissue remains, because it has only few to no opioid receptors.

The observations so far relate exclusively to preclinical experiments with cell cultures or animal studies. Controlled clinical trials on patients are pending. Therefore, a broad application of methadone as an antitumoral substance is currently not in sight.

Nevertheless, the NATUM classifies the results of Dr. med. Claudia Friesen is so hopeful that she would like to explicitly encourage the scientist with the award for further research projects for the benefit of cancer patients, the working group justifies its decision.

Original paper: C. Friesen: "D, L-methadone increases the cytotoxic effect of conventional cancer therapies", DZO 2017; 49 (2): p. 61-67.