Association between Thioridazine Use and Cancer Risk in Adult Patients with Schizophrenia-A Population-Based Study

Abstract

ObjectiveSeveral cell line studies have demonstrated thioridazine’s anticancer, multidrug resistance-reversing and apoptosis-inducing properties in various tumors. We conducted this nationwide population-based study to investigate the association between thioridazine use and cancer risk among adult patients with schizophrenia. MethodsBased on the Psychiatric Inpatient Medical Claim of the National Health Insurance Research Database of Taiwan, a total of 185,689 insured psychiatric patients during 2000 to 2005 were identified. After excluding patients with prior history of schizophrenia, only 42,273 newly diagnosed patients were included. Among them, 1,631 patients ever receiving thioridazine for more than 30 days within 6 months were selected and paired with 6,256 randomly selected non-thioridazine controls. These patients were traced till 2012/12/31 to see if they have any malignancy. ResultsThe incidence rates of hypertension and cerebrovascular disease were higher among cases than among matched controls. The incidence of hyperlipidemia, coronary artery disease and chronic pulmonary disease did not differ between the two groups. By using Cox proportional hazard model for cancer incidence, the crude hazard ratio was significantly higher in age, hypertension, hyperlipidemia, cerebrovascular disease, coronary artery disease and chronic pulmornary disease. However, after adjusting for other covariates, only age and hypertension remained significant. Thioridazine use in adult patients with schizophrenia had no significant association with cancer. ConclusionDespite our finding that thioridazine use had no prevention in cancer in adult patients with schizophrenia. Based on the biological activity, thioridazine is a potential anticancer drug and further investigation in human with cancer is warranted.

DNA Interaction with 17α‐Ethinylestradiol Studied Using Electrochemical Biosensors and Biosensing in Solution

“…To confirm the such a binding kind of the DNA interaction, a set of interaction experiments has been performed with the DNA/GCE biosensor incubated 5 min in solution of EE2 alone and EE2 with thioridazine, a known DNA interaction partner . Together with the decrease in dGuo and dAdo DPV responses, the anodic peak of 1.5 ⋅ 10 −4 mol L −1 EE2 decreased to about 60 % and that of 1.0 ⋅ 10 −7 mol L −1 thioridazine at +0.70 V decreased to about 55 % confirming their mutual binding interference.…”