Cancer in the News

Comments

1. Tina says:

   March 5, 2008 at 8:00 pm

   Thanks for sharing this information, Gregory.

   Reply
2. Gregory D. Pawelski says:

   March 5, 2008 at 7:42 pm

   Chinese Herbal Remedies

   Sometimes, extracts from natural substances can “chemosensitize” cancerous tumors. Specifically enhancing the sensitivity of cancer cells to killing by chemotherapy drugs has been a focal point of a number of research scientists.

   Boosting the drug sensitivity of tumor cells might make it possible to give lower doses of a chemotherapy agent while still achieving an effective response and minimizing side effects.

   The first large-scale “computer screenings” of Chinese herbal remedies – commonly used in traditional Chinese medicine – has revealed a wide variety of compounds with potential for use in treating HIV/AIDS, cancer, Alzheimer’s Disease, arthritis and other diseases, according to scientists in London.

   An article in the ACS’ Journal of Chemical Information and Modeling, a bi-monthly publication, David J. Barlow and colleagues noted that such “in silico” research is becoming increasingly effective in identifying promising compounds that could be candidates for drug development.

   In silico (“in silicon”) means research done on computers or via computer simulation and has joined the in vivo and in vitro experiments traditionally used in the life sciences.

   The researchers screened a database of chemical structures of Chinese herbal constituents from 240 species of plants for possible activity against various diseases. About 62 percent of the species were found to contain chemicals with characteristics required for activity against at least one disease and 53 percent against two or more diseases.

   The study also describes corroborative evidence from the scientific literature that supported many of the computer predictions. In a companion article in the journal, the researchers describe the herbal databases.

   There was one “in vitro” experiment in an ovarian patient who never responded to anything. The patient got every ovarian drug on the market. So she went to a Chinese herbalist, who treated her with some Chinese herbal medicine. She had sort of a mushy, mixed response. Some “softening” of subcutaneous tumors, with progression intraabdominally.

   The patient had one of the SQ masses biopsied and sent for “in vitro” testing. Strangely, it was quite “sensitive” in the tests to several drugs, two of which had utterly failed the patient previously. Refractory ovarian cancers are generally very refractory. Never really sensitive. False positive?

   The physician went ahead and treated the patient with two drugs active in the assay. A short time later, complete response. No tumor left in a patient who’d previously had a massive tumor burden and no good prior reponse to anything.

   Now, the herbal medicine probably didn’t do all that much, by itself. But what it seemed to do was to “chemosensitize” her tumor. Hope springs eternal for the elusive cancer treatment breakthrough, when cancer scientists think outside the box!

   Reply

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