The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved a drug to treat neuroblastoma, an often-fatal pediatric cancer, based on pioneering research by College of Human Medicine professor André Bachmann.
The FDA approved a tablet form of a drug called difluoromethylornithine, or DFMO (synonym eflornithine), developed in 1978 and later used to treat West African sleeping sickness. The agency’s approval will allow doctors to use oral DFMO to reduce the rate of relapses in patients who have previously undergone standard therapy for neuroblastoma.