Oxytocin Treatment for Breast Cancer

A new method of treating breast cancer using hormones may be under development by Atossa Healthcare. The company received a patent in 2005 for using carbetocin, a synthetic oxytocin drug developed to stop postpartum bleeding, and other long-lasting oxytocin compounds against breast cancer - as well as for psychiatric disorders such as autism and OCD.

According to the patent abstract,

Ideally, new therapeutic and prophylactic agents against breast cancer will target important biological pathways in breast cell growth and differentiation. With respect to developing new hormonal treatment strategies, a large number and variety of hormones and growth factors are thought to interact in complex pathways to influence breast cancer initiation and disease progression.

... Among the many hormonal regulatory factors that have been investigated as possible tools for regulating breast cell growth, differentiation and/or survival, the peptide hormone oxytocin has received recent interest as a potential growth modulating agent for breast cancer cells.

The patent notes studies in which oxytocin inhibited the growth of mouse mammary cells.

The drug can be administered by intravenous or intranasal injection, inhaled, placed under the skin, applied to the skin, or swallowed. The oatent says the preferrd method is for the patient to self-administer via nasal spray or powder.

Atossa Healthcare is owned by Nastech.

Comments

[L505]

Injecting drugs, or injecting hugs? I think the whole Drug version of oxytocin will soon be banned for some side effect that is discovered 30 years later. Maybe the reason people have breast cancer is because of lack of hugging in today's relationships and too much focus on careers and shopping malls. Well, time to go to work I don't have time to hold you now honey - well time to go shopping honey I don't have time to hold you.

[Susan Kuchinskas]

Definitely, a lack of hugging and other warm contact has all kinds of bad effects on our health. And more definitely, hugging is a much better way to get oxytocin than injecting it. But there's evidence from rat studies that if we don't get the right kind of nurturing in the first year of life, our brains don't develop enough oxytocin receptors and they're not as sensitive as normal.