Selection of clinically relevant drug concentrations for in vitro studies of candidates drugs for cancer repurposing: a proposal

Drug repurposing of widely prescribed patent-off and cheap drugs may provide affordable drugs for cancer treatment. Nevertheless, many preclinical studies of cancer drug repurposing candidates use in vitro drug concentrations too high to have clinical relevance. Hence, preclinical studies must use clinically achievable drug concentrations. In this work, several FDA-approved cancer drugs are analyzed regarding the correlation between the drug inhibitory concentrations 50% (IC₅₀) tested in cancer cell lines and their corresponding peak serum concentration (C_max) and area under the curve (AUC) reported in clinical studies of these drugs. We found that for most targeted cancer drugs, the AUC and not the C_max is closest to the IC₅₀; therefore, we suggest that the initial testing of candidate drugs for repurposing could select the AUC pharmacokinetic parameter and not the C_max as the translated drug concentration for in vitro testing. Nevertheless, this is a suggestion only as experimental evidence does not exist to prove this concept. Studies on this issue are required to advance in cancer drug repurposing.