Overview of Antabuse^® (Disulfiram) in Radiation and Cancer Biology

Abstract

Antabuse^®, generic name disulfiram, has been extensively used in daily clinical practice to treat alcohol abuse. In vivo and in vitro experiments have demonstrated that disulfiram was capable of inhibiting tumor cell proliferation; clinical studies have indicated that the administration of this drug was associated with favorable survival, whilst in vitro experiments have elucidated the anticancer mechanism of disulfiram. In addition, radiation and cancer biology studies have shown that disulfiram can protect normal cells and sensitize tumor cells during radiotherapy. This review aims at describing the antitumor activity of disulfiram in both preclinical studies and clinical trials, whilst focusing on the advances of this drug in radiation and cancer biology, and the promise of repurposing it as a novel sensitizer to, and protector against, radiation on the incoming clinical studies.

Keywords:

• disulfiram
• cancer biology
• radiotherapy
• overview

Abbreviations

ALDH, aldehyde dehydrogenase; Cu, copper; CSC, cancer stem cells; DSF, disulfiram; DTC, diethyldithiocarbamate; DNA, deoxyribonucleic acid; NF-κB, nuclear factor kappa B; NPL4, Nuclear protein localization protein 4 homolog; ROS, reactive oxygen species; UPS, ubiquitin-proteasome system.

Disclosure

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.