Ciência e terapia do câncer

Ficus species have been used in both Ayurvedic and Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM); however the medicinal uses of these species are widely found and originated in Middle East. The phytochemical study of Ficus foveolata was under taken with small scale extraction of stem (300 g) for cytotoxic screening and dereplication purpose. The crude methanolic extract of Ficus was partitioned into different fractions of hexane, dichloromethane and methanol. All the five fractions FA, FB, FC, FD and FE were screened for their anti-proliferative effect in the disk diffusion assay (In vitro) against six cancer cell lines. The bioassay-guided isolation of a new antitumor agent (Ficusonolide; 3α-hydroxylean-12-en-29, 19α-olide (1)) was carried out from the methanolic extract (FB) of Ficus faveolata. Its structure was elucidated on the basis of extensive spectroscopic techniques (IR, MS and NMR). The pure compound 1 was evaluated against twelve cell cancer lines for the determination of its antiproliferative potency. In disk diffusion assay the dichloromethane fraction (FB) showed excellent activity at very low concentration. The compound 1 exhibited strong and selective activity against two cancer cell lines: H116 (Human colon adenocarcinoma) and H125 (Human lung adenocarcinoma) with the IC50=7.8 μg/ml and 11.0 μg/ ml respectively. The selectivity and potency of the pure compound 1 was in concordance with the activity profile of the fraction FB and ethno-medicinal uses of this plant. This small project on local medicinal plants has opened new vista for future research work on indigenous medicinal plants. The compound 1 can be used a template compound for further studies, as a chemotherapeutic agents against cancer.

Chordomas are rare malignant primary bone tumors of ectodermal origin, that arise from notochordal remnants of the developing spine, which most often occur in the sacral area. It is an aggressive, locally invasive neoplasm, which carries a poor prognosis. Chordomas’ metastatic incidence ranges from 5 to 40%. It is generally believed that metastases without local recurrence of primary neoplasm are extremely rare. En-bloc excision with wide margins and postoperative radiation therapy remains the only curative treatment of primary chordoma. Its metastases should also be resected surgically.

We present the first case of metastasis of a previously surgically treated primary sacrococcygeal chordoma. Metastatic lesions developed in the abdominal wall of a 42-year-old man without local recurrence and were discovered incidentally. We also describe the surgical management of this case.

This phenomenon has not yet been described. We demonstrate that, incidentally discovered chordoma metastasis in the abdominal wall can occur and present a diagnostic challenge. This case report focuses on the importance of follow up with magnetic resonance imaging or computerized tomography scan after resection of sacral chordoma paying attention to the entire abdomen. After this experience we feel that surgery could be considered a valid option for the treatment of chordoma metastasis in this scenario.

Developing new treatments that reduce prostate cancer progression is important. Therapeutic efficacy of conventional gene therapy for metastatic prostate cancer is still low. Lower induction rate of naked genes into target cell is due to reduced expression of adenovirus receptor on cancer cell and also due to high seroprevalence of anti-Ad antibodies in adults. Therefore, efficient Ad carrier systems that circumvent these problems should be developed. Gamma-delta T cells have demonstrated high affinity to cancer cells. CD46, which leads to broad tropism in Ad35 vectors, is expressed in hematopoietic cells, including γδ T cells. In this study, we demonstrate the potential of γδ T cells as “vehicles” for transporting Ad5/F35 vectors and genes into cancer cells.

Severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) mice transplanted with CD4+ T cells depleted of CD25+ regulatory T cells develop colitis within 2-3 weeks after the T cell transfer. In the present study we studied the effect of the carcinogen azoxymethane (AOM) on the colon crypt pathology of normal SCID mice and SCID mice with transfer colitis. AOM by itself did result in neither weight loss nor inflammation although treatment affected crypt widths and numbers. Although AOM together with T cell transfer did not increase the level of gut inflammation including COX-2 expression, AOM increased crypt changes associated with colon inflammation such as a decline in crypt numbers and an increase in crypts width throughout the large intestine. Thus it appears that AOM lower the threshold level for inflammation-induced changes which potentially may lead to neoplasia.