The potential utility of melatonin in the treatment of childhood cancer

Abstract

Childhood cancer management has improved considerably, with the overall objective of preventing early-life cancers completely. However, cancer remains a major cause of death in children, with the survivors developing anticancer treatment-specific health problems. Therefore, the anticancer treatment needs further improvement.Melatonin is a effective antioxidant and circadian pacemaker. Through multiple mechanisms, melatonin has significant positive effects on multitude adult cancers by increasing survival and treatment response rates, and slowing disease progression. In addition, melatonin appears to be safe for children. As an appealing therapeutic agent, we herein address several key concerns regarding melatonin's potential for treating children with cancer.

Melatonin Reprograms Glucose Metabolism in Cancer Cell Mitochondria

“…Interest in these alleged pineal secretory products, however, has waned since in some cases their structure was not characterized and, moreover, they were never proven to be released from pinealocytes. In contrast, although some of the early reports yielded ambiguous results, investigations into the role of melatonin in controlling tumor growth persisted and currently is a highly active and productive subject of research [10][11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18]. This action of melatonin has linked it to a very wide variety of cancer types, e.g., breast, prostate, lung, cervical, colorectal, liver, melanoma, leukemia, several childhood cancers, etc.…”