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THE notorious drug thalidomide can stop or delay an aggressive form of blood
cancer called multiple myeloma in its early stages, doctors in the US
report.

Thalidomide was originally sold as a morning sickness cure but turned out to
cause severe birth defects. It is only the third drug—and the first in
three decades—that works against multiple myeloma.

Vincent Rajkumar of the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota has found that 14 out of 16
patients recently diagnosed with multiple myeloma improved after taking
thalidomide. In six, levels of myeloma protein—a marker for the
disease—fell by half or more.

At present, the cancer is incurable and lethal. Every year, 12,000 people in
the US die of it, says Rajkumar. “It’s been a very frustrating disease to
treat,” he says. Because thalidomide has less serious side effects than
chemotherapy, and doesn’t have to be injected, it could be given to patients as
soon as they’re diagnosed, Rajkumar says. But it’s too early to tell whether the
drug’s benefits outweigh its costs in terms of quality of life, he adds.

Its side effects include severe constipation, fatigue, numbness and skin
rashes. “One could argue whether the patients in the long term will benefit,”
says James Berenson, director of the multiple myeloma programme at Cedars-Sinai
Medical Center in Los Angeles.

Other uses for thalidomide—such as treating leprosy—have also
emerged in recent years.