Could a prostate cancer drug save lives from the deadly radiation of a nuclear blast?

That’s an open question now thanks to the results of a new study using a hormone-blocking drug called degarelix (Firmagon) to save the lives of mice exposed to a deadly level of radiation. The team’s research showed that more than two-thirds of their male mice survived after they received one dose of the approved cancer drug 24 hours after radiation exposure. In comparison, almost all irradiated mice who did not receive the drug died within three weeks due to irreversible damage to their bone marrow, which supplies the body with blood and immune cells — a “very striking difference,” said study co-leader Dr. Enrico Velardi of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.

Now that the group’s data are published, the team hopes to work with U.S. government authorities and the drug manufacturer on the necessary follow-up research to establish degarelix as a lifesaving treatment for people exposed to high levels of radiation, said study co-leader Dr. Jarrod Dudakov of Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. If it proves itself, he said, the drug could even be included in national disaster-emergency stockpiles.

The researchers hope to pursue additional studies that would help build the case for this drug’s potential in helping mitigate disaster in a nuclear emergency. Obviously, randomized tests of the drug’s potential to save human lives from radiation damage are out of the question for ethical reasons. However, researchers noted that additional lab-model studies, plus studies of blood-forming cells in patients prescribed this type of drug as a cancer treatment, may help build the case.

Read the full article about this prostate cancer drug by Susan Keown at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.