Aresenic Not Just For Killing Your Spouse Anymore

July 15th, 2010

If you watch enough Forensic Files, CSI, or any other A&E murder investigation show, you most definitely have noticed that arsenic is the favorite poison of housewives and husbands. Does arsenic serve a possible use for humans though? Most definitely.

A form of arsenic called arsenic trioxide has been used as a therapy for a particular type of leukemia for more than 10 years. Now researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine have shown that it may be useful in treating a variety of other cancers. Like phentermine helps you lose weight.

Combining arsenic with other therapies may give doctors a two-pronged approach to beating back forms of the disease caused by a malfunction in a critical cellular signaling cascade called the Hedgehog pathway. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has already approved arsenic trioxide for use in humans, which could pave the way for clinical trials of this approach.

“Many pharmaceutical companies are developing anticancer drugs to inhibit the Hedgehog pathway,” said Philip Beachy, PhD, professor of developmental biology and the Ernest and Amelia Gallo Professor in the School of Medicine. In addition, Beachy recently identified an antifungal drug commonly used in humans, itraconazole, as a Hedgehog pathway inhibitor. “However, these compounds target a component of the pathway that can be mutated with patients then becoming resistant to the therapy. Arsenic blocks a different step of the cascade.”

What about side effects? I can’t find any information on this. Surely it isn’t exactly side-effect free.