Cancer Treatment Drug Surprisingly Effective in Allergy Reduction

Guest: Bruce Bochner, Professor, Medicine, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine Nearly 15 million Americans have potentially life-threatening food allergies. Many live in constant fear that an allergen will sneak into their food and cause possibly fatal anaphylaxis.  For food allergies like that, there really isn’t much that can be done to alleviate that fear. Now, a team of scientists is repurposing a cancer drug that may have broad capacity to block allergies. Ibrutinib (eye-broot-in-ib) is a cancer drug used to treat Leukemia through less-toxic means than chemotherapy. Could it also tackle allergies? It’s all very preliminary, but early results are promising.