The antioxidant effect of green tea catechin ameliorates experimental liver injury.

PURPOSE: Several studies have reported green tea catechin to have both antifibrotic and anti-oxidative effects. The goal of this study was to evaluate the effect of green tea cathechin therapy in hepatic tissue injury using cholestatic rats with bile duct ligation. MATERIALS AND METHODS: We performed bile duct ligation on cholestatic seven-week-old male Wistar rats and classified them into three groups according to the method of treatment. The groups comprised the SHAM group, the NT-group (no-treatment-group), and the T-group (treatment-group). The rats were orally administered green tea catechin at a dose of 50mg/kg/day and were sacrificed on the 17th postoperative day. We subsequently investigated the levels of fibrosis and antioxidant activity associated with various clinical markers. We evaluated the serum AST and ALT levels and performed immunohistochemical analyses for 4-hydroxynonenal (4-HNE), 8-oxo-2'deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) and transforming growth factor-beta1 (TGF-beta1). We also evaluated the levels of activator protein-1 m-RNA (AP-1 m-RNA) and tissue inhibitor metalloproteinase-1 m-RNA (TIMP-1 m-RNA) by Real Time PCR. Finally, we performed Azan staining and immunohistochemical staining of alpha-smooth muscle actin (alpha-SMA) to evaluate the degree of fibrosis. RESULTS: The values of serum AST, serum ALT, AP-1 m-RNA, alpha-SMA, TGF-beta1, 4-HNE, and 8-OHdG in the T-Group were significantly lower than those in NT-Group. Therefore, the administration of green tea catechin might have suppressed the oxidative stress, controlled the stellate cell activation and consequently reduced the fibrosis. CONCLUSION: Green tea catechin may reduce hepatic fibrosis by suppressing oxidative stress and controlling the transcription factor expression involved in stellate cell activation.

Chemosensitivity of patients with recurrent esophageal cancer receiving perioperative chemotherapy.

Perioperative chemotherapy (CT) and chemoradiotherapy are widely used for advanced esophageal cancer. We evaluated the chemosensitivity of patients displaying recurrent esophageal cancer after esophagectomy with perioperative CT. From the database at National Cancer Center Hospital in Tokyo, we extracted recurrent esophageal cancer cases after perioperative CT and evaluated the effectiveness of the first CT against the recurrent disease according to the duration between termination of the original perioperative CT and recurrence with treatment-free intervals (TFIs) 6 months. Systemic CT for their recurrent disease was performed for 30 esophageal cancer patients after perioperative CT. All patients received 5-fluorouracil and cisplatin as perioperative CT, with relapses occurring at TFIs 6 months in 19 patients (all received platinum-containing regimens). The response rate of patients experiencing a recurrence at TFIs 6 months was 0 and 37% (P = 0.029), the median progression-free survival was 2.8 and 4.8 months (log-rank P = 0.001) and the median overall survival was 6.1 and 10.2 months (log-rank P = 0.012), respectively. Recurrence at the TFI