Leflunomide, a drug commonly used to treat rheumatoid arthritis, may also inhibit the growth of malignant melanoma, a deadly form of skin cancer, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UAE) in the UK and Children’s Hospital Boston in the US.
You can read how UAE researchers Dr Grant Wheeler and Dr Matt Tomlinson and colleagues made the discovery in a paper published online in Nature this week.
The breakthrough discovery is exciting scientists and clinicians because it takes much less time to trial a drug that is already licensed for another disease than it does for one never previously tested, leading to speculation that this treatment might be available in the next five years.
