Breaking: IVERMECTIN is a Promising Future Cancer Treatment

Ivermectin has powerful antitumor effects, including the inhibition of proliferation, metastasis, and angiogenic activity, in a variety of cancer cells. This may be related to the regulation of multiple signaling pathways by ivermectin through PAK1 kinase. On the other hand, ivermectin promotes programmed cancer cell death, including apoptosis, autophagy and pyroptosis. Ivermectin induces apoptosis and autophagy is mutually regulated. Interestingly, ivermectin can also inhibit tumor stem cells and reverse multidrug resistance and exerts the optimal effect when used in combination with other chemotherapy drugs.

Ivermectin has a variety of different mechanisms of action in different cancers, and its potential for synergistic effects and enhanced efficacy in combination therapy was of particular interest to us. Not only does Ivermectin not overlap with other therapies in term of its mechanism of action, but the fact that of IVM has multiple targets suggests that it is not easy to produce IVM resistance. Therefore, continued study and testing of safe and effective combination drug therapies is essential to maximize the anticancer effects of Ivermectin.



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The cross-talk between MAPK and PI3K/AKT signaling pathways contributes to cancer drug resistance, and the combination inhibition of PAKs and other proteins in the network may be a new strategy for cancer therapy to overcome drug resistance.


PAKs can also stimulate JNK and NF-κB interacting kinase (NIK) to activate NF-κB signaling pathway, leading to cancer development (Dammann et al., 2014; Li et al., 2017). Thus, PAK1 inhibition might be a potential option for NF-κB-dependent cancer therapy


It is reported that PAK1 inhibition leads to decreased mTOR activity and cytostatic autophagy, and regulation of PAK1 in other cascades (MAPK and NF-κB) can indirectly regulate autophagy

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