Good news for cystic fibrosis - Diarrhea drug combined with antibiotic could treat bacterial infections for patients
Last updated 11/15/2011 10:44:24 AM
Good news for cystic fibrosis - Diarrhea drug combined with antibiotic could treat bacterial infections for patients
An over-the-counter drug used to treat diarrhea combined with minocycline, an antibiotic used to treat bacterial infections, could one day change the lives of those living with cystic fibrosis.
Cystic fibrosis is a potentially a fatal genetic disease. Now researchers at McMaster University in Ontario, Canada, have come up with a creative approach to tackle antibiotic resistance to bacterial infections, a frequent complication of those with the condition.
"Antibiotic resistance is having a profound effect on known drugs that are used to treat illness and disease," said researcher Eric Brown. "Previous advances in treating cystic fibrosis have been in managing infection, but since infectious organisms are increasingly developing resistance to antibiotics, the importance of providing new treatments is more important than ever."
Brown, who made the discovery in collaboration with fellow researchers Gerry Wright and Brian Coombes, found that the combination of these two drugs inhibits the growth of bacteria after screening a collection of previously approved non-antibiotic drugs.Their screening revealed that this particular combination using the anti-diarrhea drug loperamide increases the efficacy of the antibiotic minocycline against multidrug resistant P. aeruginosa.
"Typically it takes 13 to 15 years to develop a drug," Eric explained. "We think that this approach could cut drug development time in half."
Maureen Adamson, CEO of Cystic Fibrosis Canada, a charity that partnered with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research to fund the project, said: "These exciting research findings hold promise that a new, safer method for treating devastating lung infections in people with cystic fibrosis may be just around the corner. These findings could impact healthcare worldwide as antibiotic resistance is a tremendous threat to many populations."