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Talk about an unlikely hero.
Tapeworms are often the bane of the health world, from ill-advised use to achieve a slim waist to inflicting terrible neurological symptoms like headaches, confusion, seizures and death.
Medication used for the little larvae could provide relief for a disease with debilitating pain and no cure that experts have deemed a clinical failure for millions of women.
Despite 1 in 10 women of reproductive age worldwide suffering, Dr. Sheeva Talebian, board-certified reproductive endocrinologist, previously told The Post that symptoms of endometriosis are often unreported and misdiagnosed.
A new study, though, has found a promising treatment for the progressive, inflammatory disease that could directly target the painful lesions growing outside the uterus.
Published in August in the journal Advanced Healthcare Material, researchers fitted niclosamide, an FDA-approved anti-worm drug, with nanotech armor for use in mice.
The medication reduced inflammation and slowed or prevented further spread of the lesions — a boon for the condition whose existing treatments merely alleviate symptoms, albeit with side effects.
While there’s no cure for endometriosis, current remedies like hormonal medications stall the menstrual cycle to limit the growth of lesions, while surgeries can remove the lesions themselves or parts of the reproductive system to manage pain.
However, the medications can often cause side effects, like nausea and mood swings. Meanwhile, lesions can keep growing after surgery.
These adverse effects prompted the need for an additional option.
Previous research in mice found a group of rogue immune cells specific to endometrial lesion tissue that drove growth and turbocharged the painful inflammation.
Researchers also discovered a unique chemical label in the cells called a folate receptor, which made them a potential target for drugs — specifically, niclosamide.
Clinicians had already been testing whether this drug could be used for other conditions beyond tapeworm infections, making it a potential treatment for endometriosis.
Working with nanomedicine specialists, the team worked to restructure niclosamide so it could dissolve better in blood by attaching it to a molecule known as a dendrimer.
A folate receptor was also added so the modified medication targeted the rogue immune cells in endometrial lesion tissue.
The final medication is similar to someone riding in a carshare, according to Anjali Sharma, a nanomedicine specialist at the University of Michigan who worked with the research team to develop the medication.
“Basically, the dendrimer is like the Uber, the folate is like the GPS, and the drug is like the passenger,” Sharma told Live Science.
“The drug is attached in such a way that when it is in systemic circulation, nothing happens until it goes inside the diseased cells,” Sharma said.
Once there, it is slowly released inside the cell over a period of two weeks.
In mouse models, a single injection of the drug directly targeted affected endometrial tissue, dramatically reducing pain and slowing, or even entirely stopping, the growth of new lesions.
However, there’s still significant work to do to ensure the medication can be used on humans — namely the fact that mice don’t menstruate or develop endometriosis.
The researchers believe the drug still shows immense promise, though.
“There’s a lot of potential in repurposing of drugs that have been tested in clinical trials to see if they would be effective in endometriosis,” Ioannis Simitsidellis, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Edinburgh’s Centres for Reproductive Health and Inflammation Research who wasn’t involved in the study, told Live Science.
Even at such an early stage in the process, the researchers have received hundreds of emails asking to join future trials.
Next steps would be testing the medication in larger sample sizes and then, if the results are promising, clinical trials on humans.