Posted on 12/11/2006 9:08:39 PM PST by ConservativeMind
A precursor of vitamin E has been shown to be effective against breast cancer cell lines which over-express human epidermal growth factor receptor (HER2).
About 30% of breast cancers exhibit high levels of HER2 -- a feature that appears to make the disease resistant to many common treatments including chemotherapeutic agents.
Now researchers in Griffith University's School of Medical Science have shown that pro-vitamin E or alpha-tocopheryl succinate can reduce tumour volume in experimental animals with high levels of HER2.
Chief investigator Associate Professor Jiri Neuzil said alpha-tocopheryl succinate (alpha-TOS) had the potential to be an inexpensive, safe and selective therapy for hard-to-treat breast cancers.
"Alpha-TOS has already shown promise as a potent anticancer agent in diseases such as colon cancer and mesothelioma. It induces controlled cell death or apoptosis in tumour cells."
Transgenic mice with high HER2 breast cancers were treated over a three week period and tumour size was monitored every three days by ultrasound imaging.
The high resolution ultrasound allows for more accurate measurement of tumour volume than any other non-invasive technique.
The research team found that while alpha-TOS is effective alone, it can be delivered into the tumour cells more efficiently when given in a conjugate form with a targeting peptide.
"Tumour volume reduced more than 50% when animals were treated with the conjugate rather than free alpha-TOS," Associate Professor Neuzil said.
He said one of the benefits of alpha-TOS as a potential anti-cancer drug was that it was metabolised in the liver to vitamin E and unlikely to cause dangerous side effects.
Associate Professor Neuzil is presenting his results at the Gold Coast Health and Medical Research Conference next week. The conference, an initiative of the Griffith Institute of Health and Medical Research, will be held December 14-15, at the Radisson Palm Meadows Resort, Gold Coast.
Grape seed extract reduces cancer by 90+% in two days:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1738076/posts
I read about both of these more than a decade ago.
The problem with many chemotherapies may be that they slect for the most resistant and most aggressive cancer cells. After 50 or 90% of the cells are killed and a remission achieved, a recurrence hits comprised of the now almost 100% resistant cancer cells.
Herceptin with other chemo seems to be a pretty effective treatment for these cancers, Lapatnib (sp) may be an improvement over Herceptin, and maybe adding these new treatments can do the trick.
When you read about something being "effective" against mesothelioma, keep in mind that is an extremely deadly cancer and many times these "effective" treatments buy a person a few months.
Clinical practice is easily 5 to 15 years behind the latest research.
But radiation and chemo don't force the cell into apoptosis. Instead, don't they try to directly kill it or limit the cancer's ability to divide?
Of course, they don't fully understand the cancers and often don't know the exact mechanisms by which the chemos work. So all I'm doing is repeating some generalities picked up from others who are knowledgeable.
bump
Carolyn
ping
Cheap, non-profitable - thus, the FDA will never approve it until some pharmacy comes up with an artificial, "owned" version.
We will wonder how in the hell supposedly educated people were actually that stupid.
Col Sanders
Please see post #2. It is grape seed extract.
Carolyn
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