Word: teropterin
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Dates: during 1947-1947
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...drug, called Teropterin, was developed by the Lederle Laboratories, and was first tried on animals and one patient at Mt. Sinai Hospital (TIME, Sept. 15). It is a vitaminlike chemical derived from folic acid...
Doctors do not know exactly how it works. Some hope that Teropterin is the kind of material that researchers have long sought as the most likely means of fighting cancer: a substance so similar to a cancer cell's favorite food that the cell devours it, but so devoid of nourishment that the cell starves. Dr. Lehv & colleagues are drawing no sweeping conclusions as to how effective Teropterin is against cancer; but none of the doctors doubts its effectiveness as a pain-reliever...
Lederle Laboratories, whose chemists are extraordinarily hopeful about Teropterin, has invested millions in developing the drug, and has recently begun to distribute it to hospitals for clinical tests. It is much too soon to get excited about Teropterin as a "cure," Dr. Lehv cautioned. The Harlem Hospital group has used the new drug only three months, found that some types of cancer seemed to respond better than others. But researchers who know about Teropterin's performance thus far think that the drug promises at least one great gain in the anti-cancer war: it seems likely to relieve...
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