What Doctors Don't Tell YouWhatever happened to thalidomide, part two. . .Doctors have found yet another use for the discredited “morning sickness” drug for expectant mothers.
Attentive readers may recall it was being used as a mouth ulcer treatment for AIDS patients (WDDTY, 1997; 4: 10). Now it is being tested on cancer patients as a therapy for reducing tumours.
Specialists from the South Carolina Cancer Centre have been testing the drug on a group of 84 patients, and have concluded that the drug that changed the way the drug industry is regulated can help in cases of advanced myeloma.
Ten per cent of the group suffered adverse reactions to the drug, which the researchers described as “infrequent”
(N Engl J Med 1999; 341: 1565-71).
Daniel Redwood DC
Tom Ferguson MD
