One of the many benefits of drug research is the accidental discovery that frequently comes along when work into one disease leads to a breakthrough in another. Now asthma looks set to be the latest condition to benefit from such a “happy accident” with a drug first devised to treat leukaemia.
Australian researchers have discovered that this drug can actually prevent asthma developing by targeting the mechanisms that actually cause the chronic lung condition.
At the moment all drug treatments for asthma focus on treating its painful symptoms, such as inflammation of the airways, coughing and wheezing, and difficulty in breathing.
Their work focuses on how two proteins in the lungs can be activated by two common triggers of asthma such as the cold and dust mites to bring on an attack. However, a compound in the leukaemia drug prompts a protein suppressed during asthma to go to work.
The research team concluded that the compound could treat the causative mechanisms of asthma, giving hope that this medication can play a significant future role in providing a potential cure for the chronic condition.
Asthma affects around 300 million people worldwide and is the most common long-term medical condition among children. The condition causes the inflammation of the bronchial tubes or airways that take air to and from the lungs.
Allergies or viruses can cause asthma to develop but the treatment remains the same, regardless of the underlying cause. As asthma caused by viruses does not respond as quickly to the typical therapies, the latest discovery regarding the leukaemia drug could be even more significant by offering a possible alternative treatment for those patients.
The research was carried out at the University of New South Wales Lowy Cancer Research Centre and its results published in the journal Nature Medicine.
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