Systemic alkalinisation delays prostate cancer cell progression in TRAMP mice

Abstract

The microenvironment of solid tumours is extremely acidic and this condition arises since the precancerous stage. This acidic milieu could therefore provide a useful target for both prophylactic and therapeutic approaches. In TRAMP transgenic mice, an in vivo model of prostate adenocarcinoma (AC), oral administration of alkaline water was devoid of unwanted side effects, and when started from an early age was as effective as NaHCO₃ in significantly delaying tumour progression, while when started when prostate tumours were already present, a nonstatistically significant trend in the same direction was detected. These findings indicate that the use of alkalinizing drugs should be considered for chemoprevention and, in association with standard chemotherapy, for treatment of human prostate AC.

Keywords:

• Alkalinisation
• chemoprevention
• prostate tumour
• TRAMP mice
• tumour microenvironment

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Dr Michele Cilli for the help with the TRAMP colonies and Dr Rocco Palmisano for providing the AlkaWater^® solution used in our experiments. We also thank our students (Eugenio Alberti and Angela Andrisani) for help with histology.

Disclosure statement

The authors report no conflicts of interest.

Funding

This work was supported in part by Ricerca Corrente Ministero della Salute 5xmille 2011 to OB.