Potential cure for osteoarthritis discovered by two Australian scientists
Two Australian scientists have discovered a potential cure for osteoarthritis, which afflicts three million Australians and costs the health system over a billion dollars a year.
Professor Peter Ghosh and Dr Jegan Krishnan have found a medication used for 70 years to treat blood clots and urinary tract infections has the remarkable effect of eliminating osteoarthritis pain, News Corp Australia reports.
Dr Krishnan has tested the drug Pentosan Polysulfate Sodium successfully on a small number of patients who have osteoarthritis in the knee and more clinical trials are needed.
However, it holds hope for reducing the major cause of joint replacements and chronic pain.
News Corp’s Health Reporter Sue Dunlevy told Sky News it’s huge news for sufferers, and could save the health system billions of dollars in knee and hip replacements.
‘Finding a treatment for this has been like a holy grail for medicine’.
‘It’s a drug that we use currently on racehorses and greyhounds, but it’s not available for humans yet in Australia’, she said.
It’s believed that becuase of this fact, it will not take long before it’s trialed on humans.
‘If it works it should be getting on the market reasonably quickly… The company developing this says it could be just two years until we see it on the market in Australia.’
Arthritis Australia does have other recommendations to overcome pain associated with the disease, such as losing weight and exercise.
This story was first published by Sky News Australia on 10 September 2017. Read article.
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