Washington (dpa) - A medical remedy, formerly used only on animals, has been shown to slow hair loss in many chemotherapy patients and could be tested on cancer patients in a few years to see if it also alleviates such chemotherapy side effects as nausea and vomiting, an article to be published in Friday's issue of the journal Science said.

The research team headed by Stephen Davis at Glaxo Wellcome in North Carolina's Research Triangle Park found that the substance, dubbed CDK2-Blocker, stopped hair loss in 50 per cent of test patients and reduced hair loss in another 20 per cent.

While hair loss may seem trivial in comparison to the effects of cancer, it is a concern that looms large to cancer patients, the article said.

The substance blocks the Cyclin Dependent Kinase 2 enzyme, which plays a key role in cell division. Scientists hope that the blocker will hinder cell proliferation in cancers.

Davis and his team concentrated on other effects of the blocker, such as its ability to protect healthy cells from attack from a variety of currently used commonly used chemotherapeutic agents. By studying that aspect of the blocker, they hoped to discover a way to protect cells in the stomach and intestine from nausea-arousing sessions of chemotherapy.

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