published 04/08/09

Possible new treatment for muscle strains

A promising new use for an existing drug

by Paul Ingraham, Vancouver, Canada MORE
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Credentials and qualifications

I am a writer and retired Registered Massage Therapist (unusually well-trained for a massage therapist, a 3000-hour program). I’m almost done with a Bachelor of Health Sciences degree. I am a peer reviewer for The Natural Standard, and a copyeditor for Science-Based Medicine. My most important qualification is more than a decade of workaholic post-graduate study, clinical experience, and constant conversations with readers from around the world, including many experts who have provided countless suggestions and criticisms.

For more information, see: Who Am I to Say? More information about my qualifications, credentials and professional experiences for my readers and customers.

EXCERPT This article is a condensed excerpt from a much more detailed tutorial about muscle strains.

Sometimes musculoskeletal health care seems quite primitive: despite everything we have learned about biology in the last several decades, treatment for a simple muscle tear mostly just consists of taking it easy and a lot of ice. There is no magic medicine to make it heal better, faster, stronger.

Or is there?

“Suramin” is a drug developed by Bayer, of Germany, in 1916, and is still sold by Bayer under the brand name Germanin. Historically, suramin has been used as an anti-cancer and antiparasite drug. Certainly it does not say on the bottle, “Try me on muscle strains!”

But that’s just what some Pittsburgh doctors did.

They had their complex biochemical reasons. Suramin suppresses production of myostatin, a protein responsible for scar tissue formation. Too much scar tissue is not only responsible for some serious complications in healing from strains, but generally tends to prevent full recovery: “The formation of scar appears to be the end product of the muscle repair process and hinders full muscle regeneration.” Instead of regrowing nice healthy muscle tissue, people tend to regrow a nice healthy internal scar, a patch of “gristle” in the muscle.

So suramin is the enemy of your enemy: it interferes with scar tissue production, and the researchers found that it “can effectively reduce fibrotic scar formation and enhance muscle regeneration 4 weeks after injury.”

But it gets better. In addition to reducing scarring, they also found evidence that “suramin directly enhances muscle regeneration after muscle injury” — it appeared to actually stimulate muscle cell repair.

Suramin is the enemy of your enemy: it interferes with scar tissue production.

One final note of encouragement is that suramin is already an FDA-approved drug, and an old one, which doctors might be able to use for this new purpose with a minimum of fuss, relatively soon. So suramin may be a practical and valuable tool for the treatment of muscle strain.

The one disappointing note in this news is that this was a test tube study, not a clinical trial. No actual muscle strain victims were injected. These scientists were using suramin on cells, not people. Therefore, despite the potential, it’s doubtful that any patient will be able to talk a doctor into actually using this treatment yet.

But it’s an intriguing bit of serious scientific medicine. In the future, athletes with serious sprains may all receive suramin injections and recover much more quickly and completely. Currently, strains can actually end athletic careers, or at the very least destroy entire seasons of competition. Imagine a world where groin pulls are no big deal!