Is digitalis a therapy for breast carcinoma?

Oleandrin-mediated inhibition of human tumor cell proliferation: Importance of Na,K-ATPase α subunits as drug targets

“…The four α isoforms of Na,K-ATPase (α1, α2, α3, and α4), are each derived from separate genes. Across species, the degree of (2). C, the cells exhibiting knockdown of α3 protein were less sensitive to oleandrin implying that the α3 target is necessary to retain sensitivity to this cardiac glycoside.…”

The cardenolide UNBS1450 is able to deactivate nuclear factor κB–mediated cytoprotective effects in human non–small cell lung cancer cells

“…We decided to use a cardenolide in order to try to deactivate the NF-nB signaling pathway in A549 tumor cells because (a) this type of drug [including digitoxin (17), oleandrin (18), and ouabain (19)] has previously been shown to interfere with the NF-nB pathway, and (b) cardenolides have a number of antitumor effects on lung cancers both in vitro (20) and in vivo (21). The antitumor effects of cardenolides have also been reported for prostate (22,23) and breast (24) cancers even at the clinical level (25). UNBS1450, the cardenolide used in the present work, is a hemisynthetic derivative of a novel compound (UNBS1244) that we identified in an African plant, Calotropis procera (26).…”

The antiproliferative effects of ouabain and everolimus on adrenocortical tumor cells

“…Formerly the clinical observations of Stenkvist and collaborators have shown the beneficial effects of digitalis treatments in women with breast cancer: very few patients treated with CS for chronic heart problems died of cancer [4,5]. For this reason various laboratories have explored the role of ouabain and similar compounds as antiproliferative agents.…”