Cancer prevention with rapamycin

// Mikhail V. Blagosklonny 1 1 Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, Buffalo, NY 14263, USA Correspondence to: Mikhail V. Blagosklonny, email: [email protected] , [email protected] Keywords: chemoprevention; lung; mTOR(definition)-inhibiting drug studied for extending healthspan and lifespan." style="text-decoration:underline dotted; text-underline-offset:2px; cursor:help;">rapamycin(definition); aging; cancer Received: February 27, 2023     Accepted: April 06, 2023     Published: April 14, 2023 Copyright: © 2023 Blagosklonny. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. ABSTRACT Rapamycin (sirolimus) and other rapalogs (everolimus) are anti-cancer and anti-aging drugs, which delay cancer by directly targeting pre-cancerous cells and, indirectly, by slowing down organism aging. Cancer is an age-related disease and, figuratively, by slowing down time (and aging), rapamycin may delay cancer. In several dozen murine models, rapamycin robustly and reproducibly prevents cancer. Rapamycin slows cell proliferation and tumor progression, thus delaying the onset of cancer in carcinogen-treated, genetically cancer-prone and normal mice. Data on the use of rapamycin and everolimus in organ-transplant patients are consistent with their cancer-preventive effects. Treatment with rapamycin was proposed to prevent lung cancer in smokers and former smokers. Clinical trials in high-risk populations are warranted.