:
Drug repurposing, known also as drug repositioning/reprofiling, is a relatively new strategy for identification of
alternative uses of well-known therapeutics that are outside the scope of their original medical indications. Such an approach
might entail a number of advantages compared to standard de novo drug development, including less time needed to introduce the drug to the market, and lower costs. The group of compounds that could be considered as promising candidates for
repurposing in oncology includes the central nervous system drugs, especially selected antidepressant and antipsychotic
agents. In this article, we provide an overview of some antidepressants (citalopram, fluoxetine, paroxetine, sertraline) and
antipsychotics (chlorpromazine, pimozide, thioridazine, trifluoperazine) that have the potential to be repurposed as novel
chemotherapeutics in cancer treatment, as they have been found to exhibit preventive and/or therapeutic action in cancer patients. Nevertheless, although drug repurposing seems to be an attractive strategy to search for oncological drugs, we would
like to clearly indicate that it should not replace the search for new lead structures, but only complement de novo drug development.
Drug development of Lung Diseases by way of Drug Repurposing; What a Pulmonary Physician can do in the Laboratory