When we think about medicines of the past, we think of creams or salves that promised a wide variety of treatments. A time when herbal teas and balms were popular.
While there was little science to back up these treatments, they did work in some cases. Now researchers believe an old medication used in the 30s may be useful in the fight against cancer.
Old school medicine, new again
The drug, acriflavine, used in the 1930s for treating gonorrhea, has turned out to have the previously unknown ability to halt the growth of new blood vessels.
“As cancer cells rapidly divide, they consume considerable amounts of oxygen,” says Gregg Semenza M.D., the C. Michael Armstrong Professor of Pediatrics and director of the vascular program at Johns Hopkins. “To continue growing, a tumor must create new blood vessels to deliver oxygen to the tumor cells.”
This medication has shown to stop blood vessel growth, which in turns slows the progression of a tumor.
A library of medical history
Johns Hopkins researchers don’t just have old medical studies; they actually have a historic medication library. This library has hundreds of FDA approved medications from decades ago. A team of researchers used the medications from this library for this study. This is not the first study where scientists dust off an old drug to see if it has any new uses in modern times.
So far, drugs in the library have been screened for use against malaria, tuberculosis, HIV and the Ebola virus. In the future, even more researchers are expected to take advantage of the library, which is continuing to grow as more drugs are added to the collection.
Studies findings on future cancer treatment
So far the research has shown improvement in mice, and while researchers are years away from human testing, they believe this drug could be added to cancer treatment cocktails that battle hard to fight cancers.
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