A new hope for cancer patients: Arthritis drug

Agencies

August 4, 2017

London, Aug 4: A simple drug used in the treatment of arthritis may provide hope for patients with blood cancer towards an affordable and effective treatment, a study has shown.

Polycythemia Vera is a type of blood cancer which causes an overproduction of red blood cells and causes itching, headaches, weight loss, fatigue and night sweats.

The researchers from the University of Sheffield in the UK discovered that methotrexate (MTX) - a drug on the World Health Organization list of essential medicines - works by directly inhibiting the molecular pathway responsible for causing cancer.

After initial tests carried on fruit fly cells, tests on human cells showed that MTX acts as a potent suppressor of JAK/STAT pathway - a signaling pathway whose misregulation is central to the development of Myeloproliferative neoplasms (MPNs), the collective term for progressive blood cancers like Polycythemia Vera.

MTX was found to suppress JAK/STAT pathway activation, even in cells carrying the mutated gene responsible for MPNs in patients, the researchers noted, in the paper published in the journal Haematologica.

Importantly, the latest tests conducted on mice showed that low-dose MTX suppresses JAK/STAT pathway activity and is able to normalise both the raised blood counts and the increase in spleen size associated with the disease in these mice.

"We have now shown pretty conclusively that we can use this approach to treat mouse models of human MPNs, results which provide a much more tangible prospect of success in humans," said Martin Zeidler, from the UK varsity.

"Repurposing MTX has the potential to provide a new, molecularly targeted treatment for MPN patients within a budget accessible to healthcare systems throughout the world," Zeidler added.

MTX has been used for 35 years to treat inflammatory diseases including rheumatoid arthritis, Crohn's disease, and psoriasis.

Diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis all feature inflammatory processes driven by JAK/STAT activity and the effectiveness of MTX in these inflammatory diseases may well be a consequence of its ability to dampen the JAK/STAT pathway.

The researchers now hope to conduct a full clinical trial early in 2018.

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WHO: Virus surge due to peak in big countries

Agencies

June 23,2020

The record levels of new daily COVID-19 cases are due to the fact that the pandemic is peaking in a number of big countries at the same time and reflect a change in the virus' global activity, the World Health Organisation said.

At a media briefing on Monday, WHO's emergencies chief Dr Michael Ryan said that the numbers are increasing because the epidemic is developing in a number of populous countries at the same time.

Some countries have attributed their increased caseload to more testing, including India and the US But Ryan dismissed that explanation.

We do not believe this is a testing phenomenon, he said, noting that numerous countries have also noted marked increases in hospital admissions and deaths neither of which cannot be explained by increased testing.

There definitely is a shift in that the virus is now very well established, Ryan said. The epidemic is now peaking or moving towards a peak in a number of large countries.

He added the situation was definitely accelerating in a number of countries, including the US and others in South Asia, the Middle East and Africa.

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Smoking linked to higher risk of coronavirus, says WHO

Agencies

July 2,2020

London, Jul 2: The World Health Organisation says smoking is linked to a higher risk of severe illness and death from the coronavirus in hospitalised patients, although it was unable to specify exactly how much greater those risks might be.

In a scientific brief published this week, the U.N. health agency reviewed 34 published studies on the association between smoking and Covid-19, including the probability of infection, hospitalisation, severity of disease and death.

WHO noted that smokers represent up to 18% of hospitalised coronavirus patients and that there appeared to be a significant link between whether or not patients smoked and the severity of disease they suffered, the type of hospital interventions required and patients' risk of dying.

In April, French researchers released a small study suggesting smokers were at less risk of catching Covid-19 and planned to test nicotine patches on patients and health workers — but their findings were questioned by many scientists at the time who cited the lack of definitive data.

WHO says "the available evidence suggests that smoking is associated with increased severity of disease and death in hospitalized Covid-19 patients. It recommends that smokers quit.

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