Researchers at the Creighton University School of Medicine have identified a drug that can protect against hearing loss in mice, and they think it can work in humans, too. The best part: It’s a drug already on the market.
The findings, published in the journal Science Advances, 1 are a potential breakthrough for the approximately 466 million people worldwide with disabling hearing loss.2 They focus on the use of a chemotherapy drug called Tafinlar (dabrafenib).
“We’re very excited about our initial results so far,” lead study author Matthew Ingersoll, PhD, a Creighton postdoctoral fellow, tells Verywell. “Obviously, these are in mice. However, since dabrafenib ...