Thalidomide on trial as anti-cancer drug

Thalidomide, the morning sickness drug that was banned in Britain in 1962 after causing deformities in about 10,000 babies worldwide, is making a comeback as an anti-cancer drug.

British scientists have begun clinical trials of the drug on patients with inoperable lung cancer, to see if it is effective in treating the cancer and preventing it from spreading or recurring.

Thalidomide was first developed in 1953. It was used in the 1950s and early 1960s as an anti-nausea drug for pregnant women, until doctors realised it was causing limb deformities in unborn children.

"Thalidomide has got awful connotations in most people's minds," said Professor Gordon McVie of Britain's Cancer Research Campaign, which is paying for the research. But he said the drug was being looked at again because it also had some extraordinary properties.

Scientists think the drug can open up blood vessels to get more chemotherapy drugs into the tumours to kill them. Once the tumours are gone they believe the drug may stop blood vessels from reopening so the cancer cannot return.

The studies are looking into the effectiveness of thalidomide in treating skin, kidney, brain and breast cancer. The drug is also being given to Aids patients with Kaposi's sarcoma, a type of cancer involving blood vessels of the skin.

Results of the trials are expected to be known in about a year.

The Thalidomide Society, which represents families who have been affected by the drug, said the drug should be used only as a last resort, but that it would not stand in the way if it was used in a positive way under stringent guidelines.

The campaign group Thalidomide UK has condemned the use of the drug because there are no legal guidelines, only voluntary ones.

- REUTERS