Tropisetron Found to Prevent Pancreatic Cancer by Blocking Dangerous Inflammation Trigger
Nikhil Prasad Fact checked by:Thailand Medical News Team Jun 26, 2025 5 hours, 10 minutes ago
Thailand Medical News: In an exciting new discovery, researchers from Keimyung University in South Korea and Harvard Medical School in the United States have found that tropisetron, a drug traditionally used to prevent nausea and vomiting, may also hold the key to preventing chronic pancreatitis and even pancreatic cancer.
Tropisetron Found to Prevent Pancreatic Cancer by Blocking Dangerous Inflammation Trigger
According to this new study covered in this
Thailand Medical News report, chronic inflammation in the pancreas is a known risk factor for the deadly form of cancer known as pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC), which currently has a dismal survival rate of less than 8%. The research team has identified a critical molecule, interleukin-33 (IL-33), as a driver of this inflammation-cancer pathway. IL-33 acts as both a signaling molecule and a nuclear regulator, encouraging immune responses that eventually contribute to tumor growth.
What’s groundbreaking is that tropisetron was found to completely block the production of IL-33 by inhibiting a key activator protein known as IRF3. In lab tests and mouse models, tropisetron not only reduced inflammation but also significantly suppressed the development of pancreatic tumors. This offers a promising new strategy in the fight against one of the world’s deadliest cancers.
From Antiemetic to Anticancer Hope
The scientists—An-Na Bae and Jong Ho Park from the Department of Anatomy at Keimyung University, along with Mahsa Mortaja, YeePui Yeung, Jiao Huang, and Shadmehr Demehri from the Center for Cancer Immunology and the Department of Dermatology at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School—screened over 1000 FDA-approved drugs to find which ones could stop IL-33.
Tropisetron stood out. Originally designed as a serotonin 5-HT3 receptor blocker to help chemotherapy patients manage vomiting, it now appears to have another powerful benefit—it blocks the key inflammatory signal IL-33 by preventing IRF3 activation. This means tropisetron may prevent chronic inflammation from ever reaching the stage where it promotes cancer.
Powerful Results in Mice
In mouse experiments, animals treated with a chemical called caerulein to induce chronic pancreatitis showed heavy immune cell infiltration and tissue damage. However, mice given tropisetron had far less inflammation, lower IL-33 levels, and significantly healthier pancreatic tissue. Most importantly, when the same test was done in genetically engineered mice prone to pancreatic cancer, those receiving tropisetron had dramatically smaller tumors.
The key detail was that when the same test was done on mice genetically engineered to lack IL-33, tropisetron had no protective effect—proving the drug’s anti-cancer benefits rely specifically on suppressing IL-33.
More Than a One Trick Drug
Tropisetron’s potential may not be limited to the pancreas. Because IL-3
3 is involved in a variety of inflammatory and cancer conditions—including those affecting the lungs, breast, colon, and more—this drug could represent a broad new class of therapies targeting inflammation-based diseases.
However, the researchers caution that while tropisetron is already approved for human use, its long-term effects when used for cancer prevention are not yet known. Also, because the 5-HT3 receptor it targets is found in many parts of the body, future efforts may be needed to create more precise delivery systems that focus specifically on the pancreas or other organs at risk.
Conclusion
The findings from this study suggest that tropisetron, a drug with a long history of safe use, could soon be repurposed as a preventative therapy for one of the most aggressive forms of cancer. By shutting down the IL-33 pathway, which fuels harmful chronic inflammation, tropisetron appears to stop pancreatic cancer before it starts. This could mark a new era in cancer prevention for those at high risk due to conditions like chronic pancreatitis.
The study findings were published in the peer reviewed journal: Cancers
https://www.mdpi.com/2072-6694/17/13/2087
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https://www.thailandmedical.news/articles/cancer
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