• Journal of Physiology & Pathology in Korean Medicine
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• v.19 no.4
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• pp.945-949
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• 2005

The objective of this study is to investigate the inhibitor effects of an traditional oriental herb, Sophora flavescens on the pancreatic & cardiac side effects of chemotherapy were studied by using Bl6-BL6 melanoma-injected C57BL6 mouse tumor model. In this study, the effects of an traditional oriental herb, Sophora flavescens, on the side effects of chemotherapy were studied using B16 melanoma-injected C57BL6 mouse tumor model. Anticancer drugs widely used in clinical situation. Sophora flavescen has significant effect on the reduction of the side effects of chemotherapy. Water extract of Sophora flavescens significantly inhibited cisplatin-induced increase of amylase (AMY) which is a good indicator of pancreatic toxicity. Sophora flavescens extract does not decrease the anti-tumor activity of cisplatin showing that it can selectively inhibit side effects of anticancer drugs preserving beneficial effect. Theses results suggest a possibility that Sophora flavescens extract can be used for cancer patients for the reduction of the side effects and improving the quality of life during chemotherapy of cancer patients.

• Biomolecules & Therapeutics
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.167-175
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• 2014

Chemotherapy has long been considered as one of useful strategies for cancer treatment. It is primarily based on the apoptosis that can selectively kill cancer cells. However, cancer cells can progressively develop an acquired resistance to apoptotic cell death, rendering refractory to chemo- and radiotherapies. Although the mechanism by which cells attained resistance to drug remains to be clarified, it might be caused by either pumping out of them or interfering with apoptotic signal cascades in response to cancer drugs. In case that cancer cells are defective in some part of apoptotic machinery by repeated exposure to anticancer drugs, alternative cell death mechanistically distinct from apoptosis could be adopted to remove cancer cells refractory to apoptosis-inducing agents. This review will mainly deal with harnessing of necrotic cell death, specifically, programmed necrosis and practical uses. Here, we begin with various defects of apoptotic death machinery in cancer cells, and then provide new perspective on programmed necrosis as an alternative anticancer approach.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.25 no.1
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• pp.1-10
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• 2002

Attempts to develop drugs, specific for cancer cells, are dealt here according to the intended cell-target. While many target specific drugs were developed, they reach only moderate successes in clinics for reasons, such as, delivery problem, lack of in vivo efficacy or toxicity. However, recent efforts focusing on the diversity of tyrosine kinases, participating in cell-signal transduction, brought fruit. The first such drug, Givec, approved by the USFDA recently, is used in clinics with great success to threat CML. The drug inhibits tyrosin kinase of bcr-abl, c-abl and v-abl. Work is progressing on other tyrosin kinase inhibitors and on other type of specific cancer cell signal protein inhibitors. These efforts are hoped to yield better cures for cancer in the near future.

• Journal of Haehwa Medicine
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.257-283
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• 2002

Objectives : Sipjundaebo-tang is prepared by ten medical herbs that tone the blood and vital energy, and strengthen health. This prescription has long been used traditionally against anemia, anorexia, extreme exhausion and fatigue. The purpose of this thesis was to review the effects of Sipjundaebo-tang that are about immunopotentiation effects, antitumor activities and potentiation, detoxification of antitumor drugs Methods : We studied the research methods and results of experiments which were selected from Korean, Japaness and American theses were on the topic of immunopotentiation effects, antitumor activities and potentiation, detoxification of antitumor drugs from Sipjundaebo-tang Results and conclusions : Sipjundaebo-tang not only potentiates the effects of the combined use of chemotherapy, but also reduces and elimimate the immunotoxicity of antitumor drugs and radiotherapy. And it strengthen immunity and improve QOL, S/OH of cancer patients.

• Annals of Pediatric Endocrinology and Metabolism
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• v.23 no.4
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• pp.226-228
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• 2018

Various endocrine dysfunctions occur during chemotherapy, including hypoglycemia. However, reports of hypoglycemia associated with 6-mercaptopurine (6-MP) are rare. Herein, we report an 8-year-old boy with severe symptomatic hypoglycemia likely due to 6-MP during chemotherapy. He had been diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia 3 years previously and was in the maintenance chemotherapy period. Treatment included oral dexamethasone, methotrexate, and 6-MP, of which only 6-MP was administered daily. Hypoglycemic symptoms appeared mainly at dawn, and his serum glucose dropped to a minimum of 37 mg/dL. Laboratory findings showed nothing specific other than increased serum cortisol, free fatty acids, ketone, alanine aminotransferase, and aspartate aminotransferase. Under the hypothesis of hypoglycemia due to chemotherapy drugs, we changed the time of 6-MP from evening to morning and recommended him to ingest carbohydrate-rich foods before bedtime. Hypoglycemia improved dramatically, and there was no further episode during the remaining maintenance chemotherapy period. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first report of this type of hypoglycemia occurring in an Asian child including Korean.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.44 no.3
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• pp.525-533
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• 1997

Background : No ideal combination chemotherapy for lung cancer has been established even though lots of combination anticancer chemotherapies have been tried. For the combination of anticancer drugs, the interaction of anticancer drugs is very important but unpredictable factor. In this experiment, we designed and tested new experiment to measure the interaction of two anticancer drugs using MIT assay in an attempt to predict clinical response of the combination regimen. Methods : With human lung adenocarcinoma cell line (PC-14), the cytotoxic effect of cisplatin, adriamycin, mitomycin C and etoposide were measured by in vitro chemosensitivity test (MIT assay). The combined cytotoxic effects of combination of two drugs were also measured in every combination of the drug concentrations and analyzed the interaction by Anava analysis of two way factorial design. Results : Four individual drugs showed cytotoxic effects on PC-14 by dose dependent fashion. Comparison of two drug combinations revealed that mitomycin C + cisplatin and adriamycin + cisplatin combinations showed stronger synergistic cytotoxic effects. Conclusion : From this experiment, we suggest two combinations of mitomycin C + cisplatin and adriamycin + cisplatin as chemotherapeutic regimens for unresectable non-small cell lung cancer. Furthermore, this experimental design could be applied to other types of cancer requiring combination anticancer chemotherapy.

• Archives of Pharmacal Research
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• v.23 no.1
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• pp.59-65
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• 2000

Cancer development and the efficiency of chemotherapy relies on the patients calcium-related pathological status such as hyper- or hypocalcemica. In the present study, we investigated the effect of extracellular cations such as calcium and magnesium on the therapeutic efficacy of antitumor drugs. The analytic parameters used were cellular drug uptake/excretion and the chemosensitivity of the human breast cancer cell lines, MCF7 and MCF7/ADR. Both calcium and magnesium ions decreased the membrane permeability of cancer cells, which was determined bycell size analysis. These divalent ions also lowered the drug uptake and the cytoplasmic levels of rhodamine 123 and adriamycin, suggesting that they might interfere with the diffusion of these drugs by modifying the physical properties of the cytoplasmic membrane. The acute cytotoxicity of adriamycin after a short period of incubation correlated with changes in its cytoplasmic level. Our results indicate that these extracellular cations might play an important role in the therapeutic activities of anticancer drugs in cancer patients. These results also provide insight a new aspect of chemotherapy, because they suggest that the therapeutic dose of anti-cancer drugs should be modified in cancer-bearing patients presenting with abnormal blood calcium levels.

• Journal of Korean Neurosurgical Society
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• v.38 no.1
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• pp.47-53
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• 2005

Objective : Anti-malaria drugs may modulate tumor resistance to chemotherapeutic agents, but it has not been proven effective in the treatment of malignant gliomas. The aim of this study was to determine whether adequate pre-clinical data on co-administration of chemotherapeutic agents with anti-malaria drugs on malignant cell lines could be obtained that would warrant its further potential consideration for use in a clinical trial for malignant gliomas. Methods : Two malignant glioma cell lines [U87MG, T98G] were treated with chemotherapeutic agents alone or with anti-malaria drugs. Cells were incubated with drugs for 4 days. Following the 4-day incubation, drug sensitivity assays were performed using 3-[4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazol-2-yl] 2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide [MTT] assay following optimization of experimental conditions for each cell lines and cell viability was calculated. Results : In all of four chemotherapeutic agents[doxorubicin. vincrisitne, nimustine, and cisplatin], the cell viability was found to be markedly decreased when hydroxychloroquine was co-administered on both U87MG and T98G cell lines. The two way analysis of variance[ANOVA] yielded a statistically significant two-sided p-value of 0.0033[doxorubicin], 0.0005[vincrisitne], 0.0007[nimustine], and 0.0003[cisplatin] on U87MG cell lines and 0.0006[doxorubicin], 0.0421[vincrisitne], 0.0317[nimustine], and 0.0001[cisplatin] on T98G cell lines, respectively. However, treatment with chloroquine and primaquine did not induce a decrease in cell viability on both U87MG and T98G cell lines. Conclusion : Our data support further consideration of the use of hydroxychloroquine prior to systemic chemotherapy to maximize its tumoricidal effect for patients with malignant gliomas.

• Journal of Chest Surgery
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.914-920
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• 1989

Bleomycin and cyclophosphamide are widely used and effective anti-cancer agents for treatment of various forms of cancer. Bleomycin has no myelotoxicity, but because of potential risk of pulmonary complications including interstitial pneumonitis and idiopathic interstitial pulmonary fibrosis, it has been limited in use. Some investigator has also suggested that cyclophosphamide can induce pulmonary toxicity like bleomycin. Recently, The combination chemotherapy including bleomycin and cyclophosphamide has been adopted effectively in some types of cancer. But there are no available literatures for synergistic effect of pulmonary toxicity in combination chemotherapy including these two drugs. We tried this study to observe synergism of pulmonary toxicity using these two drugs in rats. The animals were divided into five groups: group 1 received intra-peritoneal injection of saline, group 2-a received only bleomycin 0.1 mg [0.4 mg/kg] by intra-peritoneal injection twice a week, group 2-b received only bleomycin 0.5 mg [2 mg/kg] by intra-peritoneal injection twice a week, group 3-a received bleomycin 0.1 mg [0.4 mg/kg] twice a week +cyclophosphamide 5 mg [20 mg/kg] two weeks interval by intra-peritoneal injection, group 3-b received bleomycin 0.5 mg [2 mg/kg] twice a week + cyclophosphamide 5 mg[20 mg/kg] two weeks interval by intra-peritoneal injection. The animals were sacrificed at 2 and 4 weeks later. Lung tissues were obtained and observed by light microscope. The results are as follows: 1. The pathologic findings of group 1 were normal without change. 2. There was no difference between group 2-a and group 3-a at 2 weeks later, group 3-a, however, revealed more severe change in lung tissue at 4 weeks later compared with group 2-a. 3. In group 3-b there was more severe pulmonary injury compared with group 2-b at 2 and 4 weeks later. We conclude that the combined administration of bleomycin and cyclophosphamide induce more severe pulmonary toxic effect than bleomycin administration alone and the combination chemotherapy including these two drugs will be require special attention to selection of the dose of each drug.

• Tuberculosis and Respiratory Diseases
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• v.39 no.3
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• pp.209-218
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• 1992

Despite the availability of drugs effective in producing a bacteriological cure, tuberculosis presents continuing problems in its control, especially in the developing world. An effective immunotherapy to be used with chemotherapy is urgently required. Intradermal injection of a suspenison of killed Mycobacterium vaccae switches off the tissue-necrotizing component of the Koch phenomenon, and promotes cell-mediated responses to the common, putative protective, mycobacterial antigens. These properties led to the empolyment of the suspension in immunotherapy as an adjunct to chemotherapy in the treatment of both tuberculosis and leprosy. The evidence leading to these conclusions is reviewed.