Scientists stumble on cancer drug

Touring down under taken a bit too literally Doctors surprised to see patient’s paraprotein levels halve on course of an antibiotic called roxithromycin

Kiwi researchers have stumbled upon what could be a promising agent against an incurable blood cancer.

Based on just-published findings, Otago University researchers are keen to know whether a decades-old antibiotic and others like it might offer hope for people living with myeloma.

Around 360 Kiwis each year are diagnosed with the disease, which is a cancer of plasma cells that usually arises in the bone marrow.

The researchers’ paper described an 86-year-old patient whose myeloma had been developing for several years. Because of his age and lack of significant signs or symptoms, the man’s haematologists had opted to observe his cancer rather than actively treat it.

But when he began a 10-day course A family of Australian tourists had an unfortunate dip in Masterton’s Henley Lake on Wednesday night when their campervan ended up in the drink.

The family, with four children aged between 3 and 16, had arrived in the town that night.

Senior Sergeant Mike Sutton said the mother got out to stretch her legs, and the father was probably of an antibiotic called roxithromycin for a chest infection, doctors were surprised to see his cancer-indicating paraprotein levels halve — and his haemoglobin levels increase.

Research haematologist Professor Ian Morison said he and his colleagues came across the response to the drug “completely by chance”.

The improvement in his condition continued six months after.

“In untreated patients with myeloma the paraprotein levels are usually very stable, and the size of his reduction was extraordinary,” Morison said.

“The persistent improvement in his haemoglobin strongly suggests that the amount of myeloma in his marrow has reduced.”

The research team’s interest in the response was supported by previous results from a related antibiotic, clarithromycin.

“Several years ago some remarkable planning to do the same. “Except they still had [the vehicle] in gear and didn’t have the brake on and it went forward into the lake with five people inside.”

Sutton said the family remained remarkably calm and members of the public looked after the mother until emergency services arrived.

A firefighter waded out about 20 metres to the campervan, attaching Myeloma is a cancer of plasma cells that usually arises in the bone marrow

The cells grow slow so are difficult to target and treat

Around 360 Kiwis each year are diagnosed with the disease

responses to clarithromycin were observed, but subsequently others found modest responses and usually in combination with other treatments,” Morison said.

“But the pharmacology of roxithromycin is much more favourable than clarithromycin so there are theoretical grounds for believing that it might be superior.”

The findings were all the more exciting given how challenging myeloma is to deal with.

Plasma or myeloma cells are not a rope. Then a nearby waka ama was used to float the father and children to safety on the shore.

They were checked over by ambulance staff. No one was taken to hospital. “The kids were in really good spirits,” Sutton said. “They were really calm considering the circumstances.”

The rescued family were taken back to Masterton Police Station to very different from normal plasma cells that make the antibodies of our immune systems.

But they grow slow — and cancers that are easier to treat with chemotherapy, such as acute leukaemia, tend to have cells that are faster growing.

“Chemotherapy kills many fast growing cells — including normal marrow cells, gut cells, hair cells — but these normal cells can recover,” Morison explained.

“In the absence of differential cell growth, chemotherapy needs to be targeted to some specific feature of that cancer.

“The genetic abnormalities within myeloma cases are very heterogeneous, so there is no single cellular pathway that we can target for myeloma therapy.” But he added progress in treatment in myeloma had been “quite remarkable” in recent years. warm up and put up in alternative accommodation for the night.

At the misty lake yesterday passers-by were capturing the unusual sight on their phones before the company retrieved the vehicle. A woman named Anne said: “When we came down this morning we saw the wildlife sharing the lake with a campervan — it was a bit unique.” — Wairarapa Times Age

New Zealand had reasonably early access, for instance, to bortezomib, a drug that had made a big difference to prognosis.

In the case of roxithromycin, Morison hoped its reported benefits might alert his team to similar agents from around the world.

Morison said roxithromycin was an easily affordable drug — a typical 10-day course cost just $3 — which meant drug companies were unlikely to be interested in researching its activity in myeloma.

“All of our excitement for the potential of roxithromycin comes from a single patient. Was there something else going on that we didn’t know about? Is he the one-in-100 who responds to roxithromycin because of the genetic makeup of his myeloma cells?

“We need to see more cases with similar responses before we promote this as a treatment option.”