Reposition Current medicine has many advantages. First of all, new drugs tend to be quite expensive. Second, existing drugs can be deployed more quickly, because safety tests have been done and years of use show all possible side effects.
Now scientists from the University of Adelaide and Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands have found that arthritis drugs can help reduce antibiotic use in blood cancer patients.
Anakinra structure – this drug helps to reduce inflammation in rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases. Image credit: Selket qua Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)
The drug in question is called Anakinra. It was developed to treat rheumatoid arthritis and other inflammatory diseases. Anakinra was approved in 2001 and it helps reduce inflammation. Scientists hope that it could help reduce the use of antibiotics in blood cancers, including leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma.
Treatment for these cancers often produces side effects, including increased susceptibility to bacterial infections. These types of infections must be treated with antibiotics, which themselves cause many problems. People develop a tolerance to antibiotics, which can be dangerous.
Scientists in Australia and the Netherlands have carried out animal tests, the results show that Anakinra has the ability to strengthen the intestinal lining and inhibit inflammation in rodents. These animal models had been previously treated with chemotherapy, which weakened the immune system.
Anakinra increases the strength of the intestinal lining and minimizes the spread of bacteria from the intestines into the bloodstream. If this effect could be replicated in humans, blood cancer patients would benefit from a reduced risk of the most common type of infection. The use of antibiotics will be slightly less common and tolerance will be less of a problem.
Dr Hannah Wardill, lead author of the study, said: “Antibiotics are the cornerstone of infection control in people with blood cancers, but they are not without challenges. Overuse of antibiotics not only contributes to the development of antibiotic resistance, but also increases the risk of chronic complications, especially in people undergoing stem cell transplants.” Scientists emphasize that we must find ways to limit the use of antibiotics, especially in cancer care.
Previously, scientists believed that the most common source of infection in hospitals was probably unsanitary surfaces. Now they see that a lot of the infections happen from within the patient’s body. The bacteria can pass through the lining of the intestines and into the bloodstream. If the person is healthy and has a strong immune system, this shouldn’t cause much of a problem. But in cancer patients, this can be a life-threatening situation.
The source: University of Adelaide
