Blood pressure compound may benefit brain tumor patients

"A widely used blood pressure medication may be the key to preventing brain function loss common after radiation treatment, according to a newly published study by researchers at Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. The findings offer the hope of an improved quality of life for cancer patients. Using a rat model, the study drew on a hypothesis from previous studies that a compound similar to the anti-hypertensive drug losartan can prevent the cognition loss that has been closely-associated with radiation therapy for brain tumor treatment. The findings, recently published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology, Physics, appear to validate the hypothesis in rats and researchers are optimistic that the same theory could easily be applied in a human clinical trial setting because the drug used has a long-established safety profile in patients who have taken it to treat high blood pressure." - newswise