The drug used to wean heroin kills leukemia cells, a new study shows. The researchers found that methadone treatment used in drug rehabilitation, knocks out cancer cells that previously resisted chemotherapy and done without affecting healthy cells. But critics question whether this laboratory study can lead to effective treatment in cancer patients.
Methadone works by binding to opioid receptors in the brain. It then blocks other opioids, such as heroin, reaching receivers and high production implored by addicts. The idea that methadone might act against cancer surfaced in 1999 when researchers found that methadone killed lung cancer cells in laboratory tests.
Claudia Friesen, a molecular biologist at the University of Ulm in Germany, have now discovered that it also acts on leukemia cells, triggering their death. She and her team treated bottles of leukemic cells and normal human blood cells with 30, 20, 15 and 10 micromoles per liter of methadone. After 48 hours, the highest concentration of methadone killed almost all cancer cells, but virtually none of the healthy red blood cells, which lack the specific receptor which binds to methadone. In another experiment, it was found that methadone kills leukemia cells known to resist other anticancer drugs. The researchers report their findings in the August 1 issue of Cancer Research .
Friesen said the next step is to test methadone in animal models to see if it goes against other forms of cancer and to better understand its side effects. But Scott Kaufmann, a cellular pharmacologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, is skeptical that methadone could become a treatment. The dose that killed the leukemia cells, 30 micromoles per liter, would be toxic to humans, he said. So unless they can overcome the side effects, "it is an attractive idea, like in lung cancer, but I do not think it has any practical significance." Friesen said new experiences have shown that methadone kills tumors with lower doses administered daily.
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