Digoxin for reduction of circulating tumor cell cluster size in metastatic breast cancer: a proof-of-concept trial

The presence of circulating tumor cell (CTC) clusters is associated with disease progression and reduced survival in a variety of cancer types. In breast cancer, preclinical studies showed that inhibitors of the Na+/K+ ATPase suppress CTC clusters and block metastasis. Here we conducted a prospective, open-label, proof-of-concept study in women with metastatic breast cancer, where the primary objective was to determine whether treatment with the Na+/K+ ATPase inhibitor digoxin could reduce mean CTC cluster size. An analysis of nine patients treated daily with a maintenance digoxin dose (0.7–1.4 ng ml−1 serum level) revealed a mean cluster size reduction of −2.2 cells per cluster upon treatment (P = 0.003), meeting the primary endpoint of the study. Mechanistically, transcriptome profiling of CTCs highlighted downregulation of cell–cell adhesion and cell-cycle-related genes upon treatment with digoxin, in line with its cluster-dissolution activity. No treatment-related adverse events occurred. Thus, our data provide a first-in-human proof of principle that digoxin treatment leads to a partial CTC cluster dissolution, encouraging larger follow-up studies with refined Na+/K+ ATPase inhibitors and that include clinical outcome endpoints. ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT03928210 . This proof-of-concept phase 1 trial shows that the size of circulating tumor cell clusters (which can promote metastatic spread) can be reduced by treatment with the Na+/K+ ATPase inhibitor digoxin in patients with metastatic breast cancer.