Tag Archives: mitomycin C

Dose intensity of uracil and tegafur in postoperative chemotherapy for patients with poorly differentiated gastric cancer

Keizo Sugimachi, Yoshihiko Maehara, Michio Ogawa, Teruo Kakegawa, Masao Tomita

A retrospective analysis of postoperative chemotherapy had shown the continuous administration of UFT, an oral preparation of 1-(2-tetrahydrofuryl)-5-¯uorouracil (tegafur) and uracil at a molar ratio of 1:4, to be e€ective for poorly di€erentiated gastric cancer. We therefore sought to determine prospectively the effective dose of postoperative chemotherapy with UFT for patients with poorly di€erentiated gastric cancer following a curative resection. We determined the e€ect of the combined intravenous administration of mitomycin C (MMC) and oral treatment with protein-bound polysaccharide Kreha (PSK), extracted from the basidiomycete Coriolus versicolor, and UFT at a dose of either 8 mg/kg or 12 mg/kg daily for 1 year. A total of 224 patients with poorly di€erentiated stage II±IV gastric cancer were entered into this study after undergoing a curative resection. No di€erences were observed between the two treatment groups in terms of prognostic factors, the toxicity rate or the doses of the drugs prescribed, other than UFT. The higher dose of UFT in maintenance therapy led to a decrease in the recurrence rate (P < 0.05), and increases in disease-free survival and cause-speci®c survival (P < 0.05). UFT at 12 mg/ kg in postoperative chemotherapy was thus found- to improve the postoperative results with no increase in toxicity for poorly di€erentiated gastric cancer, and is also cost-e€ective for outpatients.

Differential anti-tumor activity of coriolus versicolor (Yunzhi) extract through p53- and/or Bcl-2-dependent apoptotic pathway in human breast cancer cells.

CY Ho, CF Kim, KN Leung, KP Fung, TF Tse, H Chan, CB Lau.

Coriolus versicolor (CV), also called Yunzhi, has been demonstrated to exert anti-tumor effects on various types of cancer cells, but the underlying mechanism has not been fully elucidated. The present study aimed to evaluate the in vitro anti-tumor activity of a standardized aqueous ethanol extract prepared from CV on four breast cancer cell lines using MTT assay, and test whether the mechanism involves apoptosis induction and modulation of p53 and Bcl-2 protein expressions using cell death detection ELISA, p53 and Bcl-2 ELISAs respectively. Our results demonstrated that the CV extract dose-dependently suppressed the proliferation of three breast tumor cell lines, with ascending order of IC50 values: T-47D, MCF-7, MDA-MB-231, while BT-20 cells were not significantly affected. Tumoricidal activity of the CV extract was found to be comparable to a chemotherapeutic anti-cancer drug, mitomycin C. Nucleosome productions in apoptotic MDA-MB-231, MCF-7 and T-47D cells were significantly augmented in a time-dependent manner and paralleled the anti-proliferative activity of CV extract. Expression of p53 protein was significantly upregulated only in T-47D cells treated with the CV extract in a dose- and time-dependent fashion, but not in MCF-7 (except at 400 mug/ml after 16 h) and MDA-MB-231 cells. The CV extract significantly induced a dose-dependent downregulation of Bcl-2 protein expression in MCF-7 and T-47D cells, but not in MDA-MB-231 cells. These results suggested that apoptosis induction, differentially dependent of p53 and Bcl-2 expressions, might be the possible mechanism of CV extract-mediated cytotoxicity in human breast cancer cells in vitro.

Alternating immunotherapy of advanced gastric carcinoma: A randomized comparison of carbazilquinone and PSK to carbazilquinone in patients with curative gastric resection

A total of 103 patients with advanced gastric carcinoma were randomized after curative surgery to receive an alternate administration of carabzilquinone (CQ) and PSK (Krestin) or carbazilquinone alone.  Each course of therapies started 1 week after the surgical operation and therapy schedules consisted of 9 courses.  In each course of 6 weeks, CQ was administered on day 0, 8, and 15.  In combined immunochemotherapy group, PSK was given orally in 3-divided doses of 2g/m^2/day from the day of the third CQ administration for consecutive 4 weeks.  Estimated survival rate and cumulative survival curve were compared untilizing the data up to 7 years after the operation.  There was no overall significant difference in survival rates between the CQ plus PSK group and the CQ alone group, but a group of patients survived significantly longer when treated with the combination of CQ and PSK.  Neither in more advanced cases nor in cancers of early stages, the addition of PSK provided an additive effect.  The favorable result obtained in one subgroup treated with PSK, suggests that the use of this agent in treating gastric cancers should be carefully evaluated in terms of serosal infiltration and nodal metastasis.?

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