A recent study reveals that while hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malaria medicine, may not be able to cure COVID-19, it may be able to treat cancer.

In 2020, then-US President Donald Trump pushed hydroxychloroquine into the spotlight as a potential COVID-19 cure, calling it a "gift from God."

Although medical trials ultimately ruled the medicine ineffective in the battle against COVID-19, scientists believe it has cancer-fighting potential. The researchers at the University of Pittsburgh discovered that hydroxychloroquine rendered drug-resistant tumors more susceptible to chemotherapy.

COVID-19 Pill Can Also Fight Cancer

The medication hydroxychloroquine "disrupted" a protein associated with cisplatin resistance. Overexpression of the protein TMEM16A, as it is known, is seen in roughly 30% of head and neck malignancies and has been associated with a reduced chance of survival.

Following promising findings in tests on chicken eggs and mice, a study of the low-cost tablet on human cancer patients is being planned. People with head and neck malignancies frequently have inferior results owing to medication resistance, according to study author Umamaheswar Duvvuri, a surgeon specialized in head and neck cancers.

Because lysosomes eject cisplatin, making the treatment less effective, this mechanism can work against chemo medicines in tumors. Because hydroxychloroquine has been shown to block lysosomes, researchers sought to see if it may assist overcome resistance.

They began by injecting human cancer cells through the membrane that surrounds chicken embryos. 'Tumor cell death' was higher in eggs treated with a combination of hydroxychloroquine and cisplatin than in eggs treated with cisplatin alone.

In a research on mice with tumors produced from cisplatin-resistant cancer cells, the findings were confirmed. The findings, which were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, showed that hydroxychloroquine may have worked in people, according to Dr. Duvvuri, Daily Mail reported.

Scientists are now preparing to conduct a clinical trial combining hydroxychloroquine with cisplatin to see if it may also cure head and neck cancer in humans. A protein called TMEM16A, according to the study, removes cisplatin from lysosomes, which are cellular compartments.

This can arise in around 30% of cases of head and neck cancer. And when this procedure is linked to a lesser chance of survival. The research was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences publication (PNAS). However, this isn't the first research to show that some malaria medications might be useful in the fight against cancer.

In mice, researchers discovered that a medication called atovaquone increased oxygen levels in tumor cells. This meant that radiation might be used to treat a variety of cancers, including lung, intestinal, brain, head, and neck cancers. The researchers are currently working on phase II clinical trial that will use a combination of hydroxychloroquine and cisplatin to treat patients with head and neck cancer, as per Express.

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Donald Trump, Jair Bolsonaro Promote Using Hydroxychloroquine

Trump and Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro are both proponents of it. At one point, then-US President Donald Trump was a strong supporter of hydroxychloroquine. It arrived at a time when scientists were hunting for viable COVID-19 remedies and there were no vaccinations available.

However, several studies promoting hydroxychloroquine as a possible COVID-19 treatment were shown to have serious data quality problems. Experts and health officials warned consumers against using the medicine in an attempt to avoid COVID-19.

Following bigger and more thorough trials, released later in 2020, it was shown that hydroxychloroquine did not aid COVID-19 patients. There's also no evidence that it works as a preventative. However, as a COVID-19 treatment, the medicine continues to have supporters, and some vaccination skeptic critics have said that they are using it as late as January of this year.

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