An asthma pill may help the body fight cancer

A drug that millions of people already take for asthma may help the immune system fight aggressive cancers, according to researchers at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine. The team, writing in Nature Cancer, found that montelukast, sold for decades under the brand name Singulair, blocks a molecule called CysLTR1 that some tumors use to recruit white blood cells called neutrophils and shield themselves from immunotherapy. When the researchers switched CysLTR1 off in mice with triple-negative breast cancer, melanoma, ovarian, colon, and prostate tumors, growth slowed and survival improved, even in cancers that had already stopped responding to treatment. "We're not just targeting the cancer, we're re-training one type of abundant immune cells in the body to fight the tumor again," said senior author Professor Bin Zhang. Because montelukast is already FDA-approved, Zhang said trials in cancer patients could begin quickly. The asthma aisle has been hiding something useful.