University of Calgary Researchers look at anti-cancer drug to treat patients with chronic pain conditions

A recent study out by the University of Calgary has revealed a new way to hopefully treat chronic pain using anti-cancer drugs. A team of researchers have looked at drugs that are typically used to treat lung and brain cancer and have tested them on mice to see if they treat chronic pain. The drugs were specially tested on pain that has resulted from nerve injury and inflammation and it was discovered that the medication responded quite well.

One of the researchers behind this study says this is exciting news for those who deal with severe chronic pain.

“We didn’t have to create anything, we just had to repurpose the drugs that have been used for in cancer treatment, to test them for different pain conditions. The interesting part of this study was that we didn’t have to create anything and it makes it much easier in terms of timeline, said Dr. Christophe Altier, Associate Professor with the Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases in the Cumming School of Medicine.

Researchers have already started looking at other types of chronic pain such as stomach and post-surgery pain to see if the medication will help in those areas.