Cancer is the second leading cause of human death next to coronary disease. Worldwide, millions of people die from cancer every year. In the United States alone, as reported by the American Cancer Society, cancer causes the death of well over half-million people annually, with over 1.2 million new cases diagnosed per year. While deaths from heart disease have been declining significantly, those resulting from cancer generally are on the rise. In this century, cancer is predicted to become the leading cause of death.
Prostate cancer is the number one cancer diagnosed in men today. While it occurs to certain extent throughout the world (least commonly in Eastern/Southern Asia), it is viewed as the major public health threat in Western Europe and, especially, the United States. In the US alone, it has been projected that 186,320 new cases of prostate cancer (mostly—among men over fifty) will have been diagnosed in 2008, accounting for 25% of all cancers diagnosed in men that year and 10% of the total cancer-related mortality. Appropriate diet (including dietary supplements) and exercise are currently the common themes for prostate cancer prevention while classical treatments are limited to surgery, radiation therapy, and hormone therapy.
Chemotherapy of late-stage prostate cancer is still largely experimental; however, it may lead to increased survival in the future. Specifically, small molecules as well as antibodies targeted at disrupting vital signaling pathways in cancerous cells have a potential to provide new basis for innovative treatment of prostate cancer and other proliferative disorders in the years to come. As a result, there is a strong need for new compound classes that can be used for hormone-refractory prostate cancer chemotherapy. We have discovered that 4-(hetero)aryl-1,2,5-oxadiazol-3-yl amino derivatives are effective in vitro against androgen-independent prostate cancer cell lines.