Methadone Seen As New Treatment To Treat Chemotherapy-Resistant Leukemia

[flashl]

August 2, 2008 12:27 a.m. EST

Nidhi Sharma - AHN News Writer

Berlin, Germany (AHN) - Methadone, an agent used to break addiction to drugs, has ability to destroy leukemia cells without harming healthy cells, a study has found.

The study, published in the August 1 issue of Cancer Research, suggests that methadone holds promise especially in patients whose cancer no longer responds to chemotherapy and radiation.

Senior author Claudia Friesen, of the Institute of Legal Medicine at the University of Ulm in Germany, and her colleagues tested methadone in lymphoblastic leukemia T-cell lines and human myeloid leukemia cell lines in lab culture because this cancer also expresses the opioid receptor.

The results indicated that methadone was as effective as standard chemotherapies and radiation treatments against non-resistant leukemia cells, and that non-leukemic peripheral blood lymphocytes survived after methadone treatment. Methadone also effectively killed leukemia that was resistant to multiple chemotherapies and to radiation, the authors suggest.

[silverweb]

1. WOW, interesting!

I'm fascinated to see how this develops.

[trotsky]

2. Amazing development.

Lost a good friend to leukemia - would be nice to see that killer cancer eradicated someday.

[Liberal Veteran]

3. Ah, opium (and your chemical derivatives)....is there nothing you can't do?

Just kidding.

Sounds interesting.