Skin Cancer Attacked By African Sleeping Sickness Drug

Investigators from the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health announced at the 10th AACR International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research that a drug commonly used to treat African sleeping disease is also effective against skin cancer.

The compound is called α-difluoromethylornithine (DFMO). The team was able to positively identify a protective effect in people who used the drug even nine years after they had stopped taking it. The chemical protects against nonmelanoma skin cancers.

“We showed a significant protective effect against basal cell carcinoma, but not a significant amount of protection against squamous cell carcinoma of the skin,” University of Wisconsin professor of medicine Howard H. Bailey, MD, says.

“We found there is still evidence that the men and women assigned to DFMO for five years continued to have a lower incidence of nonmelanoma skin cancers compared with people assigned to placebo,” the expert adds.