Thalidomide can stem the advance of blood cancer in elderly patients when used with a combination of other drugs, researchers said on Friday.

Thalidomide was taken off the market decades ago after causing severe birth defects in children but scientists in Italy said it could help patients suffering from multiple myeloma, a cancer that begins in a type of white blood cell.

In a trial involving 255 patients, researchers led by Dr Antonio Palumbo of the University of Turin found those treated with thalidomide, melphalan and prednisone had higher survival rates than those treated with melphalan alone.

But their study published in The Lancet medical journal warned that those patients also faced increased rates of side effects such as infection and thrombosis.

“After 50 years of unsuccessful attempts to find new and more effective treatment approaches suitable for most patients with myeloma, our results lend support to the use of thalidomide in the initial treatment of elderly patients with multiple myeloma,” Palumbo said.

Dr Shaji Kumar, from the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, called the findings “an historic moment in myeloma therapy.”

He added: “Addition of thalidomide resulted in a 50 percent improvement in the overall response and a doubling of the 2-year event-free survival.”

In the 1950s and early 1960s, thalidomide was used as an anti-nausea drug for pregnant women until doctors realised it was causing limb deformities in unborn children by limiting blood supply.

Since then, the drug has been experiencing a revival as a cancer treatment. Scientists are testing its impact on lung, blood and brain cancers. It has also been approved to treat leprosy.

SOURCE: The Lancet March 10, 2006.