An experimental study on the therapeutic effect of ABNOBAviscum. on oral squamous cell carcinoma xenografted in nude mice

Jang, Myung Jin; Lee, Jae Hoon; Kim, Chul Hwan

Abstract

In recent studies, the treatment for oral cancer with chemotherapeutic agent is evaluated as an effective method to reduce cancer proliferation. However, minimization of serious side effects, such as bone marrow suppression, gastrointestinal toxicity and renal damage is very crucial. Thus a possible approach to develop a clinically applicable chemotherapeutic agent is to screen anticanceral activity of viscum album extracts which are known to have very little side effect and have been used in Europe for almost 80 years. In this study, I focused on screening anti-canceral activities of ABNOBAviscum. in vitro and in vivo, which is viscum album extracts that was proved to act anti-cancerally on other solid tumors. In vivo study, HN 22 cell lines were xenografted in nude mice. After the growth of tumor mass was observed, ABNOBAviscum. was directly injected on the tumor mass. The experimental group and the control group were compared and divided at week 1, 2, 4, 6, 8. The results were obtained as following : The growth of the cells was decreased according to the ABNOBAviscum. concentrations, especially in the NHOK. According to the MTT assay, HN 22 cell lines showed relative drug resistancy above the 100 microgram/ml concentrations of ABNOBAviscum.. The visual inspection of the experimental group showed that the volume of the gross tumor mass was significantly decreased at week 2 via statistics, and tumor mass was subsided at week 6. Microscopic view of the xenografted tumor mass showed well differentiated squamous cell carcinoma. At week 6, microscopic view of the experimental group showed fibrosis, inflammatory cell invasions and degenerative calcifications. After the ABNOBAviscum. injection, scar tissue was seen widely at week 8. Ki-67 index was considerably decreased at week 2 in the experimental group. Immunostainability of Bcl-2 index was decreased in the experimental group at week 2. There was no difference in density of blood capillary between the control and the experimental group. In this study, ABNOBAviscum. showed the excellent anti-canceral activity against HN 22 cell lines and was proved to induce cell death in oral squamous cell carcinoma cells through apoptosis and necrosis.