Scientists at the University of Birmingham have found cancer-busting properties in Ecstasy and anti-depressant drugs such as Prozac. Believe. Research backed by the Leukaemia Research Fund found over half of lymphoma (cancers of white blood cells) samples studied responded in test tubes to the growth-halting properties of psychotropic drugs. These include amphetamine derivatives such as Ecstasy and weight-loss pills, and also antidepressants such as Prozac (fluoxetine). These findings offer important leads to possible new treatments of cancer. Professor John Gordon from the University of Birmingham's Medical School says: "We think that a range of psychotropic agents that are being used, or sometimes abused, for other reasons will now help us in our fight against all different types of cancer". He adds: "We are excited that drugs like Prozac are effective in killing these types of cancer cells, as these antidepressants are in such wide circulation and have an impressive safety record". The application of Ecstasy is not so straightforward.  Co-lead scientist Dr Nick Barnes explains: "We must stress very strongly that we couldn't use Ecstasy itself as a therapeutic compound, as the dose required to treat the tumour would kill the patient.  But perhaps by breaking down the actions of this designer drug we can extract its cancer killing properties from more general toxic effects associated with its use". Dr David Grant, Scientific Director at the Leukaemia Research Fund, welcomed the findings of this research: "Around 10,000 people are diagnosed with a lymphoma in the UK each year and so the possibility that some of these patients can be treated with antidepressants that have cancer-killing properties is truly remarkable. Clearly there is a lot more work to do before this became a reality but it is very exciting that there may be other, much less aggressive ways, of treating this particular cancer." These findings have been published in the FASEB Journal.   17 samples that included cases of acute lymphoblastic leukaemia and multiple myeloma were treated.  When exposed to antidepressants 9 of the 17's growth rate was significantly slowed down, while 11 of the 17 reacted similarly to one or both of the amphetamine derivatives.    The Birmingham team have been working for five years in this area, supported by the Leukaemia Research Fund. This study builds on John Gordon and Nick Barnes' previous findings that Prozac is effective in killing cells specifically from Burkitt's lymphoma, a common cause of children's cancer in Africa.