A clinical trial in the United Kingdom will begin soon investigating whether a curry ingredient can improve the treatment of patients with advanced bowel cancer.
Researchers intend to test patients with a pill that contains curcumin, a compound found in the yellow curry spice turmeric.
Curcumin has shown in lab tests to have the capacity to boost chemotherapy drugs' ability to kill bowel cancer cells. Other trials suggest that it might be able to slow the spread of the cancer, and improve the efficacy of chemotherapy--all the while protecting healthy cells from any ill effects of radiotherapy.
Since these results were pre-clinical, researchers decided to bring it to a clinical trial, and are recruiting approximately 40 patients with bowel cancer that has spread to the liver for a two-year trial conducted by Cancer Research UK and the University of Leicester.
According to chief investigator Professor William Steward, director of the Experimental Cancer Medicine Centre (ECMC) at the University of Leicester, "Once bowel cancer has spread it is very difficult to treat, partly because the side effects of chemotherapy can limit how long patients can have treatment. The prospect that curcumin might increase the sensitivity of cancer cells to chemotherapy is exciting because it could mean giving lower doses, so patients have fewer side effects and can keep having treatment for longer.
"This research is at a very early stage but investigating the potential of plant chemicals to treat cancer is an intriguing area that we hope could provide clues to developing new drugs in the future."
Source: The Press Association
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