Chemo with fewer side effects may be on the way

A discovery by University of Queensland pain researchers may allow some future cancer patients, including children with leukaemia, to avoid their chemotherapy’s worst and most debilitating side effects.

Professor Irina Vetter and Dr Hana Starobova thought “turning off” the inflammation that is one of the body’s natural reactions to the chemotherapy drug vincristine might reduce its accompanying pain and unpleasant symptoms.

“We found the anti-inflammatory drug anakinra substantially reduced the awful nerve symptoms for which vincristine chemotherapy is known,” Professor Vetter said.

“Importantly, it did not reduce the effectiveness of the chemo.”

She said the finding was specific to vincristine and anakinra, although early findings suggested anakinra may help relieve symptoms of some other chemotherapy drugs.

“Unfortunately chemo’s side effects are sometimes so terrible that people interrupt their treatment or end it, putting them at risk of succumbing to their cancer,” Professor Vetter said.

“Reducing the chemo’s unpleasant symptoms ultimately will save lives and a lot of patient suffering.”

Read more: Developing treatments for vincristine-induced neuropathy

Pain can persist years after chemotherapy

The researchers made the discovery while studying how vincristine causes sensory nerves to function abnormally.

Dr Starobova said neuropathy was one of the chemotherapy drug’s most unpleasant and severe side-effects, causing tingling and numbness in hands and feet, pain, and muscle weakness leading to limping.

“Unfortunately these symptoms can persist long after treatment,” Dr Starobova said.

“The only way to ease them is to lower the vincristine dose, but this lowers the treatment’s effectiveness against the cancer.

“Where chemotherapy is concerned, neuropathic pain results from immune cells infiltrating the nerves and inflammation running wild.”