In the quest for new treatments, U.S. researchers are looking to traditional Chinese medicines, some of the oldest remedies in the world.

A recent discovery resulted in a better treatment for a type of leukemia that strikes about 1 in 250,000 people in the U.S. Another study found a potential new painkiller in China's medicine chest. Other researchers are studying a traditional medicinal plant called "thunder god vine" for its anti-cancer properties.

The approach has already had some success. The Chinese herbal medicine artemisinin, for instance, has gone on to become the most potent anti-malarial drug available.

Not all the leads have panned out, of course. But the old field has shown enough potential to keep interest high.

A better leukemia treatment drawn from an ancient medicine should give us hope for developing anti-cancer drugs, says Dr. Samuel Waxman, a co-author of the report and professor of medicine and cancer specialist at Mount Sinai Hospital. "It gives a lot of optimism of seeking other types of cancer medicines in the Chinese pharmacopedia, which many people are looking into," Waxman says.

The treatment uses arsenic trioxide, which has traditionally been used in Chinese medicine. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved arsenic trioxide (sold as Trisenox here) as a treatment in 2000, and later research showed that patients who received standard chemotherapy followed by arsenic trioxide did better than patients who just received standard chemotherapy.

But a big clinical test recently found that the drug, in combination with all-trans retinoic acid another drug commonly used to treat acute promyelocytic leukemia (APL) turned out to be more effective than the usual chemotherapy.

That results means arsenic trioxide should become the new standard for patients that can use it, says Dr. Richard Stone, director of the adult acute leukemia program at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute.

"So this was a cure for leukemia without chemotherapy, really for the first time in a large randomized trial," says Stone. "We've got a patient in the hospital right now who's receiving that very therapy."

He says there are still side effects from the new regimen affecting the skin and heart, but for most people they're less of a problem than the hair loss, vomiting and diarrhea that can come with chemotherapy.

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Western scientists look to Chinese medicine