A cancer drug that researchers have been generating for decades may be able to help patients with enlarged hearts, The Daily Mail reported.
Initially used to fight cancer, the rare medication has the ability to shrink enlarged hearts and possibly treat heart failure, a condition that kills 40 percent of those diagnosed within a year.
“The heart decreased back to near its normal size, and heart function that had previously been declining went back to normal. That is a powerful observation where disease regression, not just disease prevention, was seen,” Joseph Hill of the University of Texas Southwestern Heart Center said.
The drug was originally generated in yeast, then tested in mice and found to have “incredible results.”
Scientists are about to start a preliminary test on heart patients, and hope it will lead to larger-scale trials.
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