Could the breast cancer drug tamoxifen also treat bipolar disorder? Journal Watch Psychiatry currently highlights results of a pilot study to test that hypothesis. Five out of eight men who took tamoxifen had a 50% reduction in mania scores; just one person out of eight responded to placebo. The only side effect appeared to be appetite loss.
Researchers tested this bizarre-seeming treatment after discovering that traditional mood stabilizing drugs reduce signaling by protein kinase C (PKC) in the brain. Since tamoxifen also blocks PKC-- and was found to reduce “manic like” behavior in rats (Anyone know what this looks like in the lab? Imagining manic rats…), it seemed logical to try the drug on humans.
Of course, tamoxifen blocks estrogen and therefore produces menopause-like effects in women-- and could potentially have other side effects in long-term use in men-- so this drug itself will probably not be a major treatment for mania. But other drugs working on this pathway could provide a fruitful new avenue of treatment for this complex and difficult disease.
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