A Favorable Response to Levetiracetam in a Patient with Metastatic Adenoid Cystic Carcinoma

Abstract

Adenoid cystic carcinoma (ACC) is a rare cancer, and there are no standard-of-care treatments for patients with metastatic ACC. We herein report a patient with lung metastasis of ACC who achieved a favorable response to levetiracetam. A 52-year-old Japanese man was admitted to our hospital because of multiple lung metastases of ACC. We performed first-line chemotherapy with cisplatin plus gemcitabine, and subsequently oral S-1 as second-line chemotherapy, which resulted in disease progression. The patient developed symptomatic epilepsy and received levetiracetam (250 mg twice daily). At five months after the initiation of levetiracetam, chest computed tomography showed regression of the metastatic lung lesions.

Repurposing of the Antiepileptic Drug Levetiracetam to Restrain Neuroendocrine Prostate Cancer and Inhibit Mast Cell Support to Adenocarcinoma

“…Levetiracetam has never been tested in prostate cancer cells before our study, whereas it has already showed anti-proliferative capacity against glioma cells in vitro ( 31 ). Albeit clinical testing of levetiracetam in patients with glioblastoma did not associate with improved progression-free survival and/or overall survival ( 32 ), a case report documented regression of lung metastatic lesions in a man with adenoid cystic carcinoma, in which levetiracetam was administered with the sole intent to relief epilepsy, and after the failure of several lines of therapy against the tumor ( 33 ). Here, we show that levetiracetam has some efficacy against both adenocarcinoma and NEPC, in vivo , in subcutaneous and spontaneous murine models.…”