Lizzy Smith learned she has multiple myeloma during a routine blood test in 2012.
"So when a doctor tells you, you have cancer, I couldn't think of anything more dreaded than that," Smith said.
Smith got chemotherapy, stem cell transplants, and bortezomib. It put her disease in remission, but depleted her platelet count and her blood's clotting ability.
"I felt like I as fading away, that I was maybe just kind of phasing into death," said Smith, "and I was so fatigued that I didn't really care."
What’s old is new again. Dr. Dean Li found that in mice, fasudil kept platelet counts normal. Fasudil is used in other countries for constricted arteries.
"We're not coming up with a new drug to treat the side effect of this cancer drug. We're trying to repurpose known drugs to treat this side effect," said Li, vice dean for research at the University of Utah School of Medicine.
Lizzy said Li's findings give her hope.
"And hope is a very powerful thing. It gives us strength to keep fighting," Smith said.
Now, Li is searching for an FDA-approved compound like fasudil, hoping to get similar results.
Fasudil is in U.S. clinical trials for treating high blood pressure, diabetic macular swelling and other health issues. For that reason, doctors said if the FDA did approve the drug for use by multiple myeloma patients, it could be made available to patients in a short time frame.
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