Sep 25, 2015 04:06 PM EDT By Staff Reporter, UniversityHerald Reporter

For a little over a decade, scientists have been exploring whether antidepressants can hinder or lower one's risk of developing brain cancer. A recent animal study shows that there may be some promising news.

Swiss researchers found that antidepressants work against brain cancer by excessively increasing tumor autophagy, a process that causes cancer cells to eat themselves. The scientists next combined the antidepressants with blood thinners -- also known to increase autophagy -- as a treatment for mice with the first stages of human glioblastoma. Mouse lifespan doubled with the drug combination therapy. Using the drugs separately showed no effect as a treatment.

"It is exciting to envision that combining two relatively inexpensive and non-toxic classes of generic drugs holds promise to make a difference in the treatment of patients with lethal brain cancer," Douglas Hanahan, senior author of the study, said in a statement. "However, it is presently unclear whether patients might benefit from this treatment. This new mechanism-based strategy to therapeutically target glioblastoma is provocative, but at an early stage of evaluation, and will require considerable follow-up to assess its potential."

In the study, mice received the combination therapy five days a week with 10 to 15 minute intervals between drugs. The antidepressant was given orally, and the other blood thinner was injected.

The data suggest that the drugs act synergistically by disrupting, in two different places, the biological pathway that controls the rate of autophagy--a cellular recycling system that at low levels enhances cell survival in stressful conditions. The two drugs work together to hyper-stimulate autophagy, causing the cancer cells to die.

"Importantly, the combination therapy did not cure the mice; rather, it delayed disease progression and modestly extended their lifespan," Hanahan said. "It seems likely that these drugs will need to be combined with other classes of anticancer drugs to have benefit in treating gliblastoma patients. One can also envision 'co-clinical trials' wherein experimental therapeutic trials in the mouse models of glioblastom are linked to analogous small proof-of-concept trials in GBM patients. Such trials may not be far off."

The findings are detailed in the journal Cancer Cells.

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