Posted on 01/17/2006 10:17:39 PM PST by neverdem
Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The dog hopped on three legs, pain from bone cancer so bad that he wouldn't let his afflicted fourth paw touch the floor. His owner was bracing for euthanasia when scientists offered a novel experiment: They injected a fiery sap from a Moroccan plant into Scooter's spinal column — and the dog frolicked on all fours again for several months.
The chemical destroyed nerve cells that sensed pain from Scooter's cancer, not helping the tumor but apparently making him no longer really feel it.
The dramatic effect in dogs has researchers from the National Institutes of Health preparing to test the chemical in people whose pain from advanced cancer is unrelieved by even the strongest narcotics.
The first human study could begin by next year, at the NIH's Bethesda, Md., hospital. A second study in dogs is slated for this summer at the University of Pennsylvania.
If the research pans out, it might one day offer doctors a desperately needed new approach to attack intractable pain. And it's from an unlikely source, a more potent cousin of the chemical that makes chili peppers hot.
Why would a substance that feels as if it's burning a hole in your tongue — yes, one researcher tasted it — relieve pain?
This fiery chemical — called resiniferatoxin (RTX) — can poison certain nerve cells that control a type of heat-related, inflammatory pain, apparently eliminating one of the body's pain-sensing systems. Yet it doesn't seem to harm other nerves that sense, for example, the sharp pain from stepping on a tack.
"The beauty of this is it just selectively targets," said Dr. Andrew Mannes, an NIH anesthesiologist who specializes in pain management.
The discovery led government scientists to scour the hillsides of Morocco for the cactuslike plant and take the unusual step of essentially manufacturing an experimental drug from its sap.
Narcotics called opioids, such as morphine, are the mainstay of treatment for pain from late-stage cancer. But between 5 and 15 percent of patients — anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 Americans a year, Mannes estimates — don't get relief. There's an urgent quest for novel options.
Michael Iadarola, a pharmacologist with the NIH's National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, was studying how nerve endings move the pain message up to the brain. For pain caused by cancer, one route is through certain nerve cells, or neurons, in the spinal region that also carry a specific receptor controlling calcium flow. Too much calcium kills cells.
Capsaicin, the chemical from chili peppers, stimulates this receptor to let in extra calcium. But RTX proved 1,000 times more potent. Touched to neurons with this receptor, RTX spurs a flood of calcium that shatters the cells' walls and quickly kills them.
Getting RTX to just the right cells requires an injection similar to the pain-relieving epidurals that women receive during childbirth, but deeper into the spinal column. RTX temporarily burns before it deadens pain, so the injection requires general anesthesia.
Let’s Be Adult About This Politics can be free of embryonic entanglements.
FReepmail me if you want on or off my health and science ping list.
bfl
I pray that this is true.
Personal experience, if I may ask?
Yes you may and yes, but not cancer; RA.
This could be very good for terminal patients, but there are some people born without pain receptors, and they usually die at a young age from injuries.
Yes thats true about the long time but my great grandmother, grandmother and mother all had it. I have two sons so it may be too late for me, but my youngest (early twenty's) is already showing symptoms. Perhaps it will be of some value to him.
This chemical provides pain relief by destroying the nerve cells responsible for transmitting the pain signal.
As such, it would be entirely unsuitable for use on folks with a possibility of recovery.
There are other innovative pain drugs on the horizon, such as conopeptides, which offer the hope of pain releif without destroying nerve cells.
Also, there are different types of pain calling for different theraputic approaches. This one seems very effective, but also very limited in its application.
If by RA you are referring to reumatoid arthritis, this drug particular chamical doesn't seem to be indicated.
You would better be hoping for the development of a conopeptide like ACV1, that might provide long-term relief.
Actually what I'm hoping for is a cure, foolish I guess but hope springs eternal.
A cure for arthritis would be something, indeed.
But, I fear the tissue damage done by the disease would be impossible to reverse.
The best that Reumatiod arthritis sufferers can hope for is pain relief and to slow (or stop if possible) the progression of the disease.
I've no idea if it has any merit, but the following link may be of interest:
http://www.anti-aging-guide.com/32rheumatoid_PFV.html
Thanks, I printed it. I read everything I can on it
No, I'm not an MD. I also suffer from arthritis, but of a different, less agressive type. Nevertheless, I have a passing familiarity with persistent pain.
I am also an investor in a number of small-cap drug development companies. So, I keep up with the issues as best I can.
My sister needed more drastic measures. Research "leaky gut syndrome".
Ester C has been the way I have relieved almost all pain from inflammation. Take as much as you need to relieve the pain.
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