Cancer Drug Offers New Hope for Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s Diseases
The movie “Awakenings” aside, there’s no really good treatment for the half a million Americans living with Parkinson’s disease. Dopamine-replacing drugs often help control the movement disorders that are the hallmark of the disease. But they don’t work for all patients, and they don’t bring any relief from the cognitive effects of the disease — in fact, they often make them worse. That’s why there’s a lot of excitement about a small study using nilotinib (Tasigna) to treat Parkinson’s disease. The drug, approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to treat cancer, suppresses tumor growth by spurring cells to do some housecleaning. In high doses, it is a heavy-hitting chemotherapy drug that
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With this drug what was seen was a very, very significant improvement in both motor and cognitive skills at the same time,” Moussa told Healthline. Parkinson’s specialists who weren’t involved in the study cautioned that other drugs have looked promising early on only to show no benefits in larger clinical trials. But they agreed the drug seems to accomplish something that no previous candidates have. “If it really works it could be an amazing big deal,” said Dr. Caroline Tanner, Ph.D., the director of Parkinson's Disease Research, Education and Clinical Center at the San Francisco Veteran's Affairs Medical Center. Dr. Michael Okun, the national medical director of the National Parkinson Foundation and a professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine, said that if the drug holds up in bigger trials, it could be prescribed for patients quickly because it’s already FDA approved. Even so, what’s considered safe enough for a chemotherapy drug may have unacceptable side effects for Parkinson’s patients, who could take it for many years, Tanner said. Moussa was confident that the lower dose eliminates the side effects seen at