A drug used to treat cystitis has the power to stop brain diseases such as BSE and CJD in their tracks, British scientists have claimed, following their work on a related disease affecting sheep. The findings, published in the Lancet medical journal this week, come from a study by researchers at the Institute for Animal Health, Edinburgh.
The drug pentosan was injected into mice seven hours after they had been deliberately infected with scrapie. The mice were genetically engineered to be susceptible to the sheep disease. 250 micrograms of pentosan was found to increase the average incubation period of one scrapie strain by up to 66 per cent. A milligram of pentosan protected the mice completely from another strain.
Further studies, however, were essential to assess possible use of pentosan as a preventative treatment. The drug is used in the US to treat women with cystitis, but is not licensed in the UK.
Although pentosan would not help someone already ill with CJD, it could stop the infection during the incubation period.