An Old Drug for Liver Cancer

Colchicine is an anti-inflammatory drug that has been available for years – centuries, in fact. It’s extremely effective in cutting short an acute attack of gout, and sufferers often don’t leave home without it. Colchicine is also used for treating some immunologic diseases, such as scleroderma, psoriasis, and Behcet’s disease, as it has an anti-mitotic action (it inhibits cell division).

Liver cancer is likely to occur in people with viral cirrhosis (hepatitis leading to cirrhosis). A Mexican study reported in the journal Cancer shows that giving viral cirrhosis patients colchicine can reduce the rate of liver cancer quite considerably. Only 9% of 116 patients given colchicine developed liver cancer over at least 3 years’ follow-up, compared with 29% of 90 untreated patients. And in those colchicine-treated patients who did get liver cancer, the onset was delayed, compared with the non-treated group.

This is a useful discovery; up to now there hasn’t been an effective preventive treatment for people with cirrhosis who are threatened by liver cancer.