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Methadone Can Kill Treatment-Resistant Forms of Leukemia

Posted on August 04, 2008

Methadone - the agent used against opioid addiction - has been found by German researchers to have surprising killing powers against treatment-resistant forms of leukemia cells.Methadone, developed in Germany in the 1930s, is a low cost agent that acts on opioid receptors, and thus is used as an opioid substitute to treat addiction. Scientists have found that opioid receptors also exist on the surface of some cancer cells for reasons that are not understood. One research group tested the agent in human lung cancer cell lines and found that it can induce cell death.Thus suggesting that methadon...

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addiction , cancer , lung , lung cancer