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The presence of circulating tumor cell CTC clusters is associated with disease progression and reduced survival in a variety of cancer types. An analysis of nine patients treated daily with a maintenance digoxin dose 0. Mechanistically, transcriptome profiling of CTCs highlighted downregulation of cellβcell adhesion and cell-cycle-related genes upon treatment with digoxin, in line with its cluster-dissolution activity.
No treatment-related adverse events occurred. Breast cancer is the most diagnosed cancer among women globally 1. In the past decade, multimodal approaches and innovative therapies have transformed the outlook of this lethal disease, leading to gains in patient survival 2.
Despite these advances, nearly , women die of breast cancer each year worldwide 1 , largely due to the development of incurable distant metastases to vital organs 3. In this context, a potentially critical factor may lie within the underlying principles of most anticancer drugs. Standard-of-care treatments are typically developed on the basis of their cytotoxic activity and are not necessarily designed to interfere with metastasis-relevant mechanisms 4 , 5.
Consequently, there is an intriguing yet uncharted opportunity for the development of metastasis-targeted agents that disrupt the causes of metastasis themselves 4 , 5. Circulating tumor cells CTCs are living cells that are shed from both primary and metastatic lesions into the bloodstream, acting as metastatic pioneers 6.
