CLEVELAND, Ohio — A research collaboration among four Ohio institutions has resulted in a promising drug to treat cocaine addiction: the-FDA approved anesthetic, ketamine.
Scientists from Case Western Reserve University, the University of Cincinnati, Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine, and MetroHealth Medical Center have created a novel approach to drug discovery that combines artificial intelligence with data from health records to identify existing drugs that have the potential to treat conditions other than those for which they were developed.
Referred to as repurposing, the process involved using an AI-based drug discovery algorithm developed by the CWRU team to screen a potential list of drugs. The top candidates were reviewed by panels of addiction experts, led by researchers at the UC, which revealed ketamine as a promising option.
A few studies had previously found increased efficacy of ketamine in treating cocaine use disorder. However, there was not sufficient number or diversity of patients to be conclusive. Employing their screening method, the researchers were able to obtain a greater diversity of participants by race, gender and concurrent medical and psychiatric conditions.
The researchers then evaluated the potential clinical effectiveness of ketamine on improving remission rates among patients with cocaine-use disorders by analyzing tens of millions of electronical health records. In doing so, they found that cocaine-use disorder patients administered ketamine for pain or depression experienced two to four times higher remission rates.
“This study is a great example of addressing an intractable problem by the creative use of AI using different sources of data,” said study co-author Pamela Davis, a professor of medicine at CWRU. “It is our hope that this approach will suggest therapeutic approaches for other difficult problems.”
More than 2 million people in the U.S. regularly use cocaine, and it is involved in roughly 1-in-5 drug overdose deaths. Regular cocaine use contributes to an array of serious health issues—including heart attack and stroke. However, there is no U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for cocaine-use disorders.
Although clinical trials would still be needed to fully assess the safety and efficacy of ketamine as a treatment for cocaine use disorder, the authors feel that their research has provided a strong argument for an investment in further testing.
In addition, the same basic method may be applied to screen for drugs with the potential to be repurposed for different conditions, thereby saving time, research funds and greatly accelerating the discovery of new therapeutics.
The study, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trial Network, was published online last week in the journal Addiction.
Gretchen Cuda Kroen covers healthcare for cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer. Read previous work at this link.
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