Gut drug halts cancer seizures

摘要

A DRUG for Crohn's disease is proving adept at blocking seizures caused by brain tumours. Many people with brain cancers called gliomas experience epileptic-like seizures. Fits occur because the transport machinery that gliomas use to move an essential amino acid into the tumour also secretes glutamate, which causes surrounding neurons to fire uncontrollably. Harald Sontheimer's team at the University of Alabama in Birmingham injected human glioma cells into 14 mice. Eight were given sulphasalazine, a drug which blocks the transport machinery; the rest a control.