Abstract 2061: Combination statin and chemotherapy treatment inhibits proliferation and cytotoxicity of an aggressive natural killer cell leukemia.

Aggressive natural killer cell leukemia is an acute neoplastic proliferation of natural killer cells, resulting in progressive disease and a poor prognosis. Establishing an effective treatment plan for aggressive natural killer cell leukemia has not been successful. Current clinical treatment plans rely on chemotherapeutic drug combinations; however, many patients do not respond well and often relapse or develop drug resistance leading to death within several months. Uncontrolled cell growth coupled to pathology caused by the natural killer cytotoxicity of the leukemia cells produces the mortality. New therapeutic approaches to this aggressive leukemia are needed. In recent years statin drugs, known for their cholesterol lowering ability, have been shown to have certain anti-tumor effects. In this study, the effect of combination chemotherapy and statin treatment on proliferation, cell cycle time and cytotoxicity was investigated using the aggressive natural killer cell line known at YT-INDY. In terms of anti-proliferative effect, combination treatment of YT-INDY with doxorubicin (1 nM and 0.1 nM) with 10 uM atorvastatin, fluvastatin or simvastatin resulted in significant (p Citation Format: Timothy A. Steele, Austin Henslee. Combination statin and chemotherapy treatment inhibits proliferation and cytotoxicity of an aggressive natural killer cell leukemia. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 104th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2013 Apr 6-10; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2013;73(8 Suppl):Abstract nr 2061. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2013-2061