Posts Tagged ‘cancer’

According to a study published in Nature Medicine journal highlighting a discovery by scientists at the University of Edinburgh, patients suffering from inflammatory conditions such as chronic diseases of the joints, lung, and other organs can expect new ray of home can expect relief with specific cancer drugs.

It was disclosed by the study that specific drugs that are currently tested for treating cancer can be helpful in minimizing the level of tissue inflammation.

From News-Medical.Net:

Professor Chris Haslett, Head of the Queen’s Medical Research Institute at the University of Edinburgh, expects the study to lead to trials of these drugs in human inflammatory diseases. Professors Adriano Rossi and Haslett, who have led this new study with other colleagues from the QMRI, said: “This study offers new hope for patients with severe inflammatory diseases. Specific treatment for such conditions is poor, and the use of steroids is fraught with potential difficulties. We have adopted a different strategy by using non-biological treatments, but this study needs urgently to be translated into trials and we are now seeking major funding to research further how these drugs work.”

CDK inhibitors such as Roscovitine have the abilities of reducing inflammtion level in the models of rheumatoid arthritis and the fatal ailment called fibrosing alveolitis, as suggested by lab tests in the past.

Rituximab, which is presently recommended for the treatment of cancer, is also effective for treating lupus and severe complications of the central nervous system.

Lupus is an immune system disorder that is featured by a self-imposed attack of the body itself that causes severe pain, diffused body organ damage, and inflammation besides reducing life quality of patients.

Rheumatologists at the Annual European Congress of Rheumatology in Vienna, Austria, found out that Rituximab is effective for treating lupus.

From News-Medical.Net:

Professor Neuwelt specialises in diagnosing and treating patients with CNS lupus. “It can be difficult to disentangle psychiatric disorders that arise from other causes,” he states. In a portion of patients, depression, seizures, verbal comprehension, perception and memory will be associated with lupus. People are understandably afraid to admit that their IQ has gone down or that they cannot read any more in fear of losing their job,” he continued. A careful history, ruling out other causes such as infection and drug side effects has improved diagnostic accuracy.

Professor Neuwelt, like others using this well-tested oncological drug in other forms of lupus, is concerned about the depletion of the B cells by rituximab for the long term. However, the risk/benefit ratio from this new treatment in its early stages is extremely promising. “It is the first drug in my 26 years of treating patients with severe central nervous system lupus, used alone or in combination with other therapies that has not only significantly boosted the quality of life for patients with this dreadful disease, but also reduced the burden of side effects of standard treatment with steroids and cyclophosphamide. However, we desperately need randomized-controlled trials.” he concluded.

Clinical professor Michael Neuwelt, at the University of California San Francisco and Stanford University, said that Rituximab can be recommended as a gentle treatment option with reduced risk of side effects.