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Laboratory tests show that methadone eliminates leukemia cells without harming healthy
Methadone, a drug used to treat people addicted to heroin and other opioids would be effective as a new therapy for leukemia, especially treatment-resistant, a study shows.
Laboratory tests show that methadone eliminates leukemia cells without harming healthy cells, released a team from the University of Ulm in Germany in Cancer Research.
Methadone also managed to eliminate the blood cancer cells resistant to chemotherapy and radiotherapy.
"The leukemia cells have receptors for opioids, to which methadone binds. Surprisingly, we found that methadone kills those cells. We had not expected," he told Reuters Health the study's lead author, Dr. Claudia Friesen.
These findings "provide a basis for new strategies methadone as an additional drug in leukemia therapy, especially
when conventional therapies are less effective," the authors conclude.
"This is very important because when conventional treatments fail, which occurs in pediatric and adult patients, there is no other option," said Friesen.
She believes that methadone will have similar effects on other cancers that express opioid receptors. "We found in the laboratory can also remove solid tumors," she added.
The team is studying the use of methadone alone or in combination with other chemotherapy drugs in animal models of cancer.
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