%0 Journal Article
%T Tumor growth effects of rapamycin on human biliary tract cancer cells
%A Matthias Heuer
%A Nici M Dreger
%A Vito R Cicinnati
%A Christian Fingas
%A Benjamin Juntermanns
%A Andreas Paul
%A Gernot M Kaiser
%J European Journal of Medical Research
%D 2012
%I BioMed Central
%R 10.1186/2047-783x-17-20
%X We investigated two human BTC cell lines. We performed cell cycle and proliferation analyses after treatment with different doses of rapamycin and the standard immunosuppressants, cyclosporine A and tacrolimus.Rapamycin inhibited the growth of two BTC cell lines in vitro. By contrast, an increase in cell growth was observed among the cells treated with the standard immunosuppressants.These results support the hypothesis that rapamycin inhibits BTC cell proliferation and thus might be the preferred immunosuppressant for patients after a liver transplantation because of BTC.Biliary tract carcinoma (BTC) is the second most malignant liver tumor and one of the 10 most frequent gastrointestinal carcinomas worldwide, causing high numbers of fatalities annually [1,2]. Despite all available treatment options, the five-year survival rate of patients with BTC is less than 20% [3,4].Liver transplantation (LT) is a therapeutic option for treatment of malignant liver tumors, including extrahepatic BTC. It is a treatment modality, besides liver resection, that offers a curative effect [5-9]. However, post-transplant outcome after LT is hampered by recurrence of the primary disease, especially in the case of tumor recurrence [10]. Tumor characteristics in the explanted liver that characterize a ¡®high-risk¡¯ pathology, such as a poorly differentiated tumor or vascular invasion, are widely accepted predictors of a poor prognosis. Hence, there is ongoing interest into research on the impact of immunosuppressive drugs upon tumor recurrence. The ideal immunosuppressive agent would simultaneously act as an immunosuppressive agent while exhibiting antitumor properties. In initial studies, rapamycin has been suggested to be a promising immunosuppressant in this regard [11-13]. It appears to be an alternative to the standard immunosuppressive agents, that is, the calcineurin inhibitors cyclosporine A and tacrolimus. In addition to a comparable immunosuppressive effect, rapamycin has also sh
%K Anti-tumor effect
%K Biliary tract carcinoma
%K Liver transplantation
%K Rapamycin
%U http://www.eurjmedres.com/content/17/1/20