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An arthritis drug may one day also serve as a new treatment for patient role with malignant melanoma that has started to fan out throughout their trunk , harmonise to a unexampled survey .
The results show leflunomide , a drug used to treatrheumatoid arthritis , can restrict the growth ofmalignant melanomatumors in mice , the researchers say .
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And when leflunomide was given in combination with another likely melanoma treatment , a drug called PLX4720 , it could completely keep tumor growth , say study research worker Grant Wheeler , a developmental biologist at the University of East Anglia in the United Kingdom .
If the same effect is seen in the great unwashed , the drug might be used along with chemotherapy to foreclose melanomas from coming back , Wheeler said . patient role with malignant melanoma frequently see their tumors come back after they have had surgery to remove them , he aver .
Since leflunomide is already approved for usance in human being , a clinical trial testing the drug in melanoma patient could begin quite before long , within the next six months , Wheeler order . And a treatment might be available in five year , he said .
" Melanoma is one of those Crab which up to now has been very resistant to discussion of any kind , " cyclist said . " With the identification of this compound , we ’ve perplex something now which hopefully will provide a really useful treatment in the very near future , " he say .
The results will be release March 24 in the journal Nature .
Preventing melanoma
Melanoma is the deadly form ofskin genus Cancer , killing about 8,700 people in the United States each yr , according to the National Cancer Institute . While overallcancerdeath rates declined by 19 percent in men and 11 percent in women between 1991 and 2005 , the death rate for melanoma increased by 5 percent . [ Why Skin Crab Is on the upgrade ]
Melanoma is a genus Cancer of pigment cells . The researchers screened 2,000 compound , looking for those that feign the ontogeny of pigment cells in zebrafish and tadpoles .
The development of organisms from an egg to a multicellular creature is a very controlled summons , Wheeler suppose — the opposite of cancer in which cells proliferate uncontrollably . " Many of the gene that are involved in ontogenesis quite often are mutated in cancer , " wheelwright said .
This screening turned up leflunomide as a potential candidate , which the squad tested on mice that had been injected with human melanoma electric cell .
The drug may ferment by sour off gene involved in cell growth , Wheeler said .
The BRAF mutation
The drug was only tested on melanomas that have a mutation in a gene called BRAF . About 50 percent of patients with melanoma have tumors with the BRAF mutation .
" It would be interesting to see the consequence of leflunomide on melanomas that do not have BRAF mutations and to empathise if there are synergetic effects when used with other treatment options , " said Mary Hendrix , of Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago , who was not involved in the current study .
While there are drugs useable to treat melanomas with the BRAF chromosomal mutation , known as BRAF inhibitors , " nearly every patient treated with the BRAF inhibitor has become resistant , " pronounce Keiran Smalley , of the H. Lee Moffitt Cancer Center & Research Institute in Tampa , Fla. , who was n’t part of the current study .
The authors indicate leflunomide might be used in combining with BRAF inhibitor to overcome resistor , but more subject field are need to show this potential difference , Smalley said . In the study , animals were only treated with [ the ] drug for relatively short stop of time … and this is probably too former for immunity to have actually emerged , " he said .
In addition , leflunomide is known to suppress the immune organisation , which can increase the danger of cancer , Smalley said .
But expert agree the newfangled study has supply significant insights into the biology of melanoma .
" To describe all of this in the context of one study is something of a spell de force , " Smalley said .
Pass it on : The drugleflunomide may bottle up the growth of melanoma when used in compounding with other treatment . Clinical trials still demand to be conducted to see whether the drug works in masses .
This story was provided byMyHealthNewsDaily , a sister site of LiveScience .
