But a contradicting finding by Shah et al. [110] pointed out that β-blocker treatment had no evident beneficial effect on overall survival of patients with common human tumours such as cancers in the lung, breast

and colon, and even produced poorer survival in patients with prostate and pancreatic cancers. Although controversial conclusions are present for the application of β-blockers in cancer treatment, it is noticeable that all of the aforementioned investigations Selleck Y-27632 are population-based retrospective studies which limited the interpretation of the results to some extent. It is time to design clinical trials to test β-blockers in adjuvant treatment of relevant cancers, especially breast cancer. Some important issues need to be considered for future studies including but not limited to blocker selectivity, dose titration and local concentration in tumour mass, β-adrenoceptor RG7420 ic50 expression,

tumour types and stages, and interaction of β-blockers and tumour microenvironment [111] and [112]. Based on preclinical translational data and retrospective analysis, we predict that β-blockers hold considerable promise to treat patients with some cancers in the future as a class of well-defined conventional drug used for cardiovascular diseases in the past decades. Numerous evidences from preclinical and epidemiological studies have implicated that stress hormones or behavioural changes are highly associated with tumour formation and progression. Patients diagnosed

with cancer often endure different degree of stress complicated with high of stress hormones. Likewise nicotine/NNK from cigarette smoke can also stimulate the secretion of stress hormones in cancer patients. All these could Florfenicol stimulate the adrenergic system. It is known that over activation of β-adrenergic system could accelerate cancer development through multiple-step process. An increasing body of information from preclinical investigations and clinical retrospective analysis have shown that β-blockers as a class of drug broadly used for hypertension regulation have great potential to be used to treat cancer patients impacted by psychological stress. However there is no exact conclusion that can be drawn so far from retrospective clinical studies. It is time to launch a well-designed and meticulous clinical trial to affirm the exact role and clinical application of β-blockers in the treatment of cancer patients. On the other hand, it is worthwhile to explore the mechanistic action of β-blockers in the normalization of tumour blood vessels. Indeed it is an emerging and promising therapeutic strategy that vessel remodelling agents in combination with chemotherapeutic drugs are being exploited to treat patients with solid tumours.