Thanks----Judy's doc is also a surgeon who is in her mid 70's--her husband is our family practice doc and they have 3 sons who are all MDs---at this point everything is pretty upside down---she is handling it better than I.
The info on Ivermecto (IVM)l as a tx for breast cancer is very interesting---
The role of IVM in different cancers
2.1. Breast cancer
Breast cancer is a malignant tumor produced by gene mutation in breast epithelial cells caused by multiple carcinogens. The incidence of breast cancer has increased each year, and it has become one of the female malignant tumors with the highest incidence in globally. On average, a new case is diagnosed every 18 seconds worldwide [30,31]. After treatment with IVM, the proliferation of multiple breast cancer cell lines including MCF-7, MDA-MB-231 and MCF-10 was significantly reduced. The mechanism involved the inhibition by IVM of the Akt/mTOR pathway to induce autophagy and p-21-activated kinase 1(PAK1)was the target of IVM for breast cancer [32]. Furthermore, Diao’s study showed that IVM could inhibit the proliferation of the canine breast tumor cell lines CMT7364 and CIPp by blocking the cell cycle without increasing apoptosis, and the mechanism of IVM may be related to the inhibition of the Wnt pathway [33].
Triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) refers to cancer that is negative for estrogen receptor, progesterone receptor, and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2(HER2) and is the most aggressive subtype of breast cancer with the worst prognosis. In addition, there is also no clinically applicable therapeutic drug currently [34,35]. A drug screening study of TNBC showed that IVM could be used as a SIN3-interaction domain (SID) mimic to selectively block the interaction between SID and paired a-helix2. In addition, IVM regulated the expression of the epithelial mesenchymal-transition (EMT) related gene E-cadherin to restore the sensitivity of TNBC cells to tamoxifen, which implies the possibility that IVM functions as an epigenetic regulator in the treatment of cancer[36].
Recent studies have also found that IVM could promote the death of tumor cells by regulating the tumor microenvironment in breast cancer. Under the stimulation of a tumor microenvironment with a high level of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) outside tumor cells, IVM could enhance the P2 × 4/ P2 × 7/Pannexin-1 mediated release of high mobility group box-1 protein (HMGB1) [37]. However, the release of a large amount of HMGB1 into the extracellular environment will promote immune cell-mediated immunogenic death and inflammatory reactions, which will have an inhibitory effect on the growth of tumor cells. Therefore, we believe that the anticancer effect of IVM is not limited to cytotoxicity, but also involves the regulation of the tumor microenvironment. IVM regulates the tumor microenvironment and mediates immunogenic cell death, which may be a new direction for research exploring anticancer mechanisms in the future.
