Cancer Drug Could Fight Scleroderma

Researchers also uncover important clues to the disease's origins

WEDNESDAY, Nov. 2, 2005 (HealthDay News) -- The anti cancer-drug paclitaxel (Taxol) may also prevent skin thickening and small blood vessel destruction in people with scleroderma, according to a study that offers new clues into the causes of the debilitating disease.

Scleroderma is a chronic, life-threatening degenerative disease characterized by tissue damage, including hardening of the skin, shrinking of muscles and damage to organs and blood vessels.

Researchers at Duke University Medical Center also found that a scleroderma patient's own immune system may interfere with the body's ability to repair damage, particularly injury to small arteries. The findings appear in this week's issue of the journal Public Library of Science Medicine.

Their research in mice has proven so promising that the Duke team is now planning to test their findings in a clinical trial.

"These new insights are critical clues to understanding a dreadful disease that has so far been impenetrable in terms of what causes it, by what mechanisms it works and why patients get so sick," Dr. Pascal Goldschmidt, senior member of the research team and chairman of Duke's department of medicine, said in a prepared statement.

"While we really don't understand what causes scleroderma; we suspect that it may be autoimmune in nature, or that the body's own immune system is involved," study lead author Dr. Chunming Dong said in a prepared statement. "Using a novel mouse model, we were able to get a much better understanding of possible mechanisms of the disease that we can use to potentially slow down or reverse the process of tissue damage."

More information

The American College of Rheumatology has more about scleroderma.

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