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VOL.446 NO.7135 DATED 29 MARCH 2007
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News: Cancer patients opt for unapproved drug
Dying cancer patients are buying a chemical called dichloroacetate (DCA) and using it to treat themselves, despite the fact that it hasn’t been approved for use in humans.
A paper published in January suggested that DCA can shrink tumours in rats while leaving healthy cells untouched, but as the chemical has been around for years, its structure can’t be patented and pharmaceutical companies have little interest in developing it as a drug.
The researcher behind the work is trying to raise the money for a small clinical trial. But hundreds of patients are already buying DCA from an Internet site or from chemical suppliers, and plan to collate information about their progress on the web, to help others who want to take it.
In this news report, Nature looks at the science behind the drug and explores the perennial debate about whether terminally ill patients should be able to get access to drugs that have not yet had formal approval. Some patients argue that they don’t have the luxury of waiting for trial results. But researchers and ethicists fear that patients will put themselves at risk of unknown side effects and that their desperate actions could sabotage efforts to carry out proper clinical trials.
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