THURSDAY, May 15 (HealthDay News) -- Researchers say they may be
able to prevent the tissue damage that lung diseases, such as
emphysema, cause by treating the patient with doxycycline, an
antibiotic commonly used to treat acne.
In experiments on mice, doxycycline -- which is also used to
treat common ailments such as sinusitis and urinary tract
infections -- appears to counter low levels of VEGF, a protein that
helps to maintain healthy lung tissue but is in unusually low
levels in people with emphysema.
"The images that we have of the lungs of mice that have been
treated with doxycycline are startlingly different to those that we
didn't treat," Ellen C. Breen, from the School of Medicine at the
University of California, San Diego, said in a prepared statement.
"VEGF-deficient lungs show vast pockets of tissue damage when
untreated and greatly reduced damage when treated with
doxycycline."
While the experiments show that doxycycline clearly can play a
role in preventing lung tissue damage, Breen stressed that it is
too early to say whether it could help humans with a genetic
predisposition to lung disease.
"It's also important to remember that we were treating the mice
with the drug whilst inducing the symptoms of lung disease, so this
is by no means a cure," she said.
More information
The U.S. National Library of Medicine has more about
emphysema.
