Ticagrelor for prevention of tumour cell-induced platelet aggregation
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Investigating Aspirin and Ticagrelor for the prevention of tumour cell-induced platelet aggregation
IRAS ID
150024
Contact name
David Adlam
Contact email
Eudract number
2014-004049-29
Duration of Study in the UK
4 years, 0 months, 1 days
Research summary
When a person has cancer, this may spread (metastize) so that new areas of cancer develop in other places. Cells from the original cancer site spread by traveling through the blood stream and then stick to new sites in the body. While circulating in the blood, these cancer cells interact with the constituents of blood including the platelets. There is evidence that circulating cancer cells stick to and activate platelets (blood components involved in clotting). This interaction helps protect cancer cells from destruction by the immune system and supports the formation of new cancer deposits. We think that we might be able to use drugs that decrease the stickiness of the cells, by interfering with the platelets, to reduce the spread of cancer round the body. A previous research project looked at aspirin as one of the drugs that reduce stickiness, and found it helped reduce the spread of cancer.
In heart research, we use drugs like aspirin to reduce clots in the blood by reducing stickiness, but recently new, more effective drugs have been used like Ticagrelor. This drug is already widely used in combination with aspirin in patients with heart attacks. In this research project we would like to find out if Ticagrelor is likely to be effective in reducing spread of cancer. We want to look at the blood of people taking Ticagrelor and see how this affects the pro-metastatic interactions between cancer cells and platelets in the lab using samples from healthy people, heart patients, and people with breast cancer or colorectal cancer. We will compare the results from patients taking aspirin alone, Ticagrelor alone and both drugs together to see if dual therapy might be more effective than treatment with either drug by itself.
REC name
East Midlands - Leicester Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/EM/0048
Date of REC Opinion
10 Mar 2015
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion