• Maxillofacial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery
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• v.13 no.4
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• pp.391-404
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• 1991

Three anticncer agents which are different in time or dosage dependence as well as in phase specificity, namely mitomycin and adriamycin from natural products, and widely different cancer cell lines_Four epidermoid carcinomas originated from larynx, cervix, skin and gut were used toghether with one osteosarcoma as the target cell of single and combined administration of anticancer drugs. Semiautomated tetrazolium dye assay(MTT) appears to offer an attractive option for chemosensitivity of head and neck cancers since it is a simple, valid and inexpensive method of assessing chemosensitivity for large samples in a short time. The results obtained form this study were as follows. 1. Good correlations were obtained with the results of the MTT test and those of $^3H$ thymidine uptake assay. 2. $LD_{50}$ values of HIST and St.Ca. which showed relatively high doubling time on adriamycin were $30{\mu}g/ml$ and $15{\mu}g/ml$ while those of HeLa, Hep-2 and KHOS/NP were $2.1{\mu}g/ml$, $4.8{\mu}g/ml$, and $6.8{\mu}g/ml$ respectively. 3. The $LD_{50}$ value of 5-FU on five cancer cells were very high ranging from 15mg/ml to almost indefinite number, which means 5-FU is very resistant to epidermoid carcinomas or osteosarcoma examined in this study. 4. Mitomycin was relatively effective showing 80% cancer killing effect on HeLa, 70% on St. Ca. and 50% on Hep-2 at the high concentrations used. 5. Adriamycin was the most effective showing 90% cancer cell killing effect on KHOS/NP, 98% on HeLa, 80% both on Hep-2 and St. Ca. The least susceptible cancer cells toward adriamycin was HIST having only 55% cell killing effect at the high cincentration. 6. Combined therapy of adriamycin and 5-FU was more effective than single administration in all the cases examined. Most effective synergism was observed on St. Ca. at the low concentration, showing 21 times higher than each single administration.

• Radiation Oncology Journal
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• v.21 no.3
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• pp.207-215
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• 2003

Purpose: Extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK), which is part of the mitogen-activated protin kinase cascade, opposes initiation of the apoptotic cell death which is programmed by diverse cytotoxic stimuli. In this regard, the inhibition of ERK may be useful in improving the therapeutic efficacy of established anticancer agents. Materials and Methods: Murine hepatocarcinoma, HCa-I is known to be highly radioresistant with a TCD50 (radiation dose yield in $50\%$ cure) of more than 80 Gy. Various anticancer drugs have been found to enhance the radioresponse of this particular tumor but none were successful. The objective of this study was to explore whether the selective inhibition of MEK could potentiate the antitumor efficacy of radiation in vivo, particularly in the case on radioresistant tumor. C3H/HeJ mice hearing $7.5\~8\;mm$ HCa-I, were treated with PD98059(intratumoral injection of $0.16\;\mug/50\;\mul$). Results: Downregulation on ERK by PD98059 was most prominent 1h after the treatment. In the tumor growth delay assay, the drug was found to Increase the effect of the tumor radioresponse with an enhancement factor (EF) of 1.6 and 1.87. Combined treatment of 25 Gy radiation with PD98059 significantly increased radiation induced apoptosis. The peak apoptotic index (number on apoptotic nuclei in 1000 nuclei X100) was $1.2\%$ in the case of radiation treatment alone, $0.9\%$ in the case of drug treatment alone and $4.9\%,\;5.3\%$ in the combination treatment group. An analysis of apoptosis regulating molecules with Western blotting showed upregulation of p53, p$p21^{WAF1/CIP1}\;and\;Bcl-X_s$ in the combination treatment group as compared to their levels in either the radiation alone or drug alone treatment groups. The level of other molecules such as $Bcl-X_L4, Bax and Bcl-2 were changed to a lesser extent. Conclusion: The selective inhibition of MEK in combination with radiation therapy may have potential benefit in cancer treatment.