Thursday, March 22, 2007

Dichloroacetate: a cheap but effective cancer drug?

This drug, Dichloroacetate (DCA) has been in the news for the past few weeks now, ever since its paper was published in the Cancer Cell journals. It showed that it can actually kill off the cancer cells by programmed cell death or apoptosis, without even harming the normal cells. A caveat though, its only been tested on mice with tumors.

However, DCA has been used for a long time now, treating patients with lactic acidosis. What is great and promising, is that this drug is cheap, and only the use of DCA AS A CHEMO DRUG has been patented by the primary investigator. The subtance itself is not.

In fact, in the Official website of the University of Alberta, they have already gotten funds for further research on humans, I presume. And of the countries that was mentioned to have given funds is my own country, the Philippines.

Wow!!! I wonder who those person/s are? I'm sure they are not doctors. :)

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