Cervical cancer is the fourth cancer in terms of incidence and mortality in women worldwide. Relative to other cancers, there has been limited progress in the discovery of effective new therapies. Drug repurposing is an alternative development pathway that utilises the properties of drugs approved for other diseases and builds on available safety and pharmacological data to develop the drug as a potential cervical cancer drug.

We have screened the literature to identify drug repurposing opportunities in cervical cancer to inform future research and trials.

We queried 534 drugs from our drug databases. Of these, 169 drugs had at least one relevant abstract or registered trial in cervical cancer. Ninety-three drugs had at least human data available with 52 drugs evaluated in registered trials. Forty-two drugs had at most in vitro data.

All 169 drugs were assessed for strength of scientific rationale, feasibility for integration in cervical cancer standard of care, evidence of radiosensitisation and an assessment of the availability of the drug for clinical trials. We have identified 39 potential candidates that are worth evaluating in cervical cancer. Although many drugs warrant additional preclinical and clinical investigation, we are exploring the possibility of conducting international collaborative multi-arm trials with one or several of these drugs.

These results have been accepted as a poster presentation at the European Society of Gynaecological Oncology Annual Conference 2021 in Prague.