According to latest research, drug derived from autumn crocus plant extract could annihilate tumours in a single treatment with minimum side effects. Researchers from the Institute for Cancer Therapeutics (ICT) at the University of Bradford have turned a chemical found in crocuses into a smart bomb that targets cancerous tumours.
Remarkably, it leaves healthy tissue unharmed and diminishing the odds of devastating side effects. The treatment known as colchicine was able to slow the progression of and even completely annihilate a range of different cancers. Colchicine has long been recognized to have anti-cancer traits but has been considered too toxic for use in the human body.
Molecule of colchicines has been altered by researchers from ICT, so that it becomes inactive in the body until it reaches the tumour. On reaching there the chemical becomes active and break up the supply of blood vessels of the tumour ad effectively starving it.
This is made possible only because of enzymes, which all tumours generate whose normal function is to break down the normal surrounding cells, allowing the tumour to spread. The tailored molecule of colchicine has a protein attached to it that makes it nontoxic. But the tumour enzyme particularly aims at the protein and eliminates it.
Dissimilar to further side effect-free drugs, it is capable to destroy more than one type of the disease, counting tumours of breast, prostate, lung and bowel. Possibly, all solid tumours could be susceptible to drugs developed in this manner, means it could be used against all but blood cancers.
Some trails of the drug showed that half of the tumours had vanished completely after a single shot. One of the things that may make this drug so effective is that it will be only active in the tumour and will not cause any damage to normal tissue.
Additionally, the drug will be set in motion wherever the enzyme is produced; the mechanism of delivery should allow treatment of particularly problematic cases of metastasis, where the cancer spreads from its initial site. According lead author Prof Laurence Patterson, they have designed effectively a smart bomb that can be triggered directly at any solid tumour without appearing to harm healthy tissue.
Just one dose of the colchicine showed this remarkable effect. However, if it passes clinical tests, the researchers believe it will be used together with existing cancer treatments, as part of the intricate procedure of tackling the disease. The researchers hope that the first tests on humans could start in next eighteen months.
source : http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health