Repurposing anticancer drugs for the management of COVID-19

Khalid El Bairi; Dario Trapani; Angelica Petrillo; Cécile Le Page; Hanaa Zbakh; Bruno Daniele; Rhizlane Belbaraka; Giuseppe Curigliano; Said Afqir

doi:10.1016/j.ejca.2020.09.014

Repurposing anticancer drugs for the management of COVID-19

Eur J Cancer. 2020 Dec:141:40-61. doi: 10.1016/j.ejca.2020.09.014. Epub 2020 Sep 22.

Authors

Khalid El Bairi¹, Dario Trapani², Angelica Petrillo³, Cécile Le Page⁴, Hanaa Zbakh⁵, Bruno Daniele⁶, Rhizlane Belbaraka⁷, Giuseppe Curigliano⁸, Said Afqir⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Medical Oncology, Mohammed VI University Hospital, Oujda, Morocco. Electronic address: k.elbairi@ump.ac.ma.
² European Institute of Oncology, IRCCS, Milan, Italy.
³ Medical Oncology Unit, Ospedale del Mare, Naples, Italy; University of Study of Campania "L.Vanvitelli", Naples, Italy.
⁴ Research Institute of McGill University Health Center (RI-MUHC), Montréal, QC, Canada.
⁵ Center of Marine Sciences, University of Algarve, Ed. 7, Campus of Gambelas, 8005-139, Faro, Portugal.
⁶ Medical Oncology Unit, Ospedale del Mare, Naples, Italy.
⁷ Department of Medical Oncology, "Bioscience et Santé" Research Laboratory, Faculty of Medicine, Cadi Ayad University, Marrakesh, Morocco.
⁸ European Institute of Oncology, IRCCS, Milan, Italy; University of Milan, Department of Oncology and Hematology, Milan, Italy.
⁹ Department of Medical Oncology, Mohammed VI University Hospital, Oujda, Morocco.

Abstract

Since its outbreak in the last December, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by SARS-CoV-2 has rapidly spread worldwide at a pandemic proportion and thus is regarded as a global public health emergency. The existing therapeutic options for COVID-19 beyond the intensive supportive care are limited, with an undefined or modest efficacy reported so far. Drug repurposing represents an enthusiastic mechanism to use approved drugs outside the scope of their original indication and accelerate the discovery of new therapeutic options. With the emergence of COVID-19, drug repurposing has been largely applied for early clinical testing. In this review, we discuss some repurposed anticancer drugs for the treatment of COVID-19, which are under investigation in clinical trials or proposed for the clinical testing.

Keywords: Anticancer drugs; COVID-19; Repurposing; SARS-CoV-2.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Antineoplastic Agents / administration & dosage*
Antiviral Agents / administration & dosage
COVID-19 / virology
COVID-19 Drug Treatment*
Drug Repositioning*
Humans
Pandemics
SARS-CoV-2 / drug effects*

Substances

Antineoplastic Agents
Antiviral Agents