Recently, news from Shanghai Institute of Materia Medica said the research of Salvicine, originated from the traditional Chinese herb sage, has entered a Phase II clinical trial, it is likely to bring new hopes to the patients with lung cancer and gastric cancer. This project was awarded the second prize of National Natural Science Award not long ago.
Sage is a popular herb medicine commonly used in River South of China. At the beginning of 90s century, Researcher Zhang Jinsheng from Shanghai Institute of Maceria Medica discovered sage contains a natural complex called sage o-quinone, which has antitumor effect. After structure modification and optimization and the pharmacology studies done by researcher Ding Jian, a novel inhibitor of DNA topoisomerase II with property of anti-drug-resistant, non-metastatic with mild toxicity has been obtained, this is Salvicine.
Research showed, Salvicine has significant inhibition to proliferation of several solid tumor cells in case of lung cancer and gastric cancer. The results from drug efficacy preliminary evaluation at Phase I trial on 16 patients showed that the side effect of Salvicine is less than existing generic drugs, especially the bone marrow supression is very mild. Among the patients who received the treatment, 13 of them were in a stable condition, had shown a sign of initial cure.
Source: Chinese Medicine
Date: March 9th, 2010
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