Investigation of the Anti-Cancer Effects of Free and PLGA-PAA Encapsulated Hydroxytyrosol on the MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cell Line.

OBJECTIVE: Breast cancer is the most frequent cancer among women and the most important cause of death. Surgery and chemotherapy are the common treatment of breast cancer, but increasing drug resistance has created many challenges in its treatment. The present study aimed to investigate the anti-cancer function of free and nano-encapsulated hydroxytyrosol on the MCF-7 breast cancer cell line. METHODS: The poly lactide-co-glycolide-co-polyacrylic acid (PLGA-co-PAA) nanoencapsulated Hydroxytyrosol was synthesized, and the MTT assay was performed to evaluate the anti-proliferative and anti-tumor effects of both free and nano-encapsulated Hydroxytyrosol. After the extraction of RNA from the treated and control cancer cells, cDNA synthesis was performed and the expression of P21, P27, and Cyclin D1 genes was evaluated by Real-Time PCR. RESULTS: The results of the study showed that free (12 ppm and 72 hours) and nanoencapsulate (10 ppm and 24 hours) hydroxytyrosol resulted in 50% death (IC50) of the cancer cells and increased by increasing the concentration and time. Also, free and nano-encapsulated hydroxytyrosol increased the expression of P21 and P27 genes and reduced the expression of Cyclin D1 in breast cancer cells. In general, the nanoencapsulated hydroxytyrosol showed more anticancer function than the free hydroxytyrosol. CONCLUSION: The present study illustrated that hydroxytyrosol could lead to cell death in MCF-7 breast cancer by regulating the cell cycle. Also, the nano-encapsulation of Hydroxytyrosol enhanced the Hydroxytyrosol anticancer function by PLGA-co-PAA. However, for more accurate results, further studies on animal models are necessary.

Identifying clinical practice guidelines for symptom control in pediatric oncology.

BACKGROUND: Children with cancer commonly experience distressing symptoms such as pain, fatigue and nausea. Improvements in patient outcomes have been associated with implementation of clinical practice guideline-consistent care across several domains. The objective of this study was to develop a process to identify symptom management clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) applicable to children and adolescents receiving cancer treatments. METHODS: We focused on identifying CPGs to manage 15 symptoms. The process defined three Tiers of CPGs based upon applicability to pediatric cancer patients and ease of identification: Tier 1: endorsed by the Children's Oncology Group; Tier 2: housed in the Emergency Care Research Institute repository, or developed by the American Society of Clinical Oncology or National Institute for Health and Care Excellence; and Tier 3: identified by systematic review. We first searched for CPGs published 2015-2020 and identified Tiers 1 or 2 CPGs. If unavailable or scope was too narrow, we proceeded to Tier 3. If CPGs were not identified, we repeated these steps for CPGs published 2010-2014. RESULTS: There were six Tier 1 and 13 Tier 2 CPGs published 2015-2020 across the 15 symptoms. Four symptoms required progression to Tier 3 because CPGs were absent (anger) or because scope was too narrow (pain, anorexia/excessive hunger and diarrhea). The systematic review identified three CPGs for pain and none for the other three symptoms. In total, CPGs were identified for 14 of 15 symptoms. None were identified for anger. CONCLUSION: We created a process to identify supportive care CPGs for pediatric cancer symptom management and were able to identify CPGs that addressed 14 of 15 symptoms. Future work should focus on evaluating implementation techniques for these CPGs and determining the impact of these CPGs on provider and patient outcomes.

Enhanced anticancer potency of doxorubicin in combination with curcumin in gastric adenocarcinoma.

Gastric cancer (GC) is one of the prevalent human malignancies and the third most common cause of cancer-related death worldwide. The doxorubicin hydrochloride is one of the important chemotherapeutic anticancer agents, with a limited therapeutic efficacy for treatment of GC. Therefore, taking advantage of synergistic effects by strategies like combination therapy seems appropriate and promising in treatment of GC. The aim of this study was to investigate a novel method to enhance the therapeutic efficacy of doxorubicin (as a chemotherapeutic agent) by co-administration of curcumin (as a bioactive herbal compound) in GC treatment. In the present study, the effects of curcumin, doxorubicin, and their combinations (Dox-Cur) were evaluated on the viability, morphological features, tumor spheroid formation, migration, invasion, and apoptosis of gastric adenocarcinoma cell line (AGS). Moreover, expression levels of BAX, BCL-2, and CASP9 genes were assessed among AGS cells treated with curcumin, doxorubicin, and Dox-Cur. The obtained results showed that all of curcumin, doxorubicin, and Dox-Cur treatments significantly decreased the viability, tumor spheroid formation, migration, and invasion in the GC model cells. Furthermore, apoptosis rates in AGS cells were increased in a concentration- and time-dependent manner in all of the treatment groups. Moreover, the anticancer activity of the Dox-Cur combination was significantly more than curcumin and doxorubicin treatments alone. According to the results, Dox-Cur combination therapy exerts more profound apoptotic and anticancer effects on the AGS cell line than curcumin or doxorubicin monotherapy.