Karolinska University Hospital first to test medicine extracted from poisonous mushrooms against kidney cancer
In a new clinical study at Karolinska University Hospital, the first patient has been treated with a drug whose active ingredient comes from one of Sweden's most poisonous mushrooms. The purpose of the clinical phase I/II trial is to study whether this can become a treatment for patients with metastatic kidney cancer.Several species of fungus in the genus Cortinarius, such as the deadly webcap which occurs in Scandinavia, are highly toxic. The poison in the mushroom is called orellanine and it is a nephrotoxin that causes serious damage to the kidneys and in larger doses destroys the