Solbec BEC: Can anyone decifer this biochemical al, page-4

I have studied some medical terms whilst trying to research info on the net regarding my son's rare illness. Whilst hardly the person to interpret the data, I do have some idea and can explain most of it in layman's terms.

>BEC Abstracts from www.rationaltherapeutics.com. Dr. Nagourneys
>page
>#1070 BEC, A Mixture Of Solasodine Glycosides Reveals Cytotoxic
>Activity In Human Tumor Primary Culture Specimens: Pre-Clinical And
>Early Clinical Observations: YZ Su, DG Spall, MA Traill, C Kollin, C
>Chow, B. Sommers, S. Harper, D Horlick, SS Evans and RA Nagourney.
>Rational Theraputics, Inc. Long Beach, CA 90806 and OncoCare Cancer
>and Prostcare Clinic, Melbourne Australia.

Bomber
This is basically saying that Solasodine Glycosides (the compunds found occuring in Devils Apple and extracted in bec) are cytotoxic (toxic to living cells) in human tumours. The names are the people involved in the study.

>BEC, a mixture of glycoalkaloids extracted from Solanum Sodomaeum
>has shown activity in human tumor cell lines (Cham, BE. Canc. Lett.
>55:1990). To characterize the cytotoxicity of BEC for human tumors
>we applied an ex vivo cell death assay (EVA) in 23 fresh human tumor
>specimens

Bomber
glycoalkaloids extracted from Solanum Sodomaeum, means the Glycosides extracted from the Devils Apple plant. Bill Cham did these original studies, an ex vivo cell death assay (EVA) in 23 fresh human tumor specimens. (ex vivo is outside the human body)

These included 8 Gynecologic (Gyn); 6 GI; 2 NSCLC; 2
>Breast (Bre) & 2 Sarcomas (Sar). In addition BEC activity was
>compared with other cytotoxic agents, including Cisplatin (CDDP);
>Doxorubicin (Dox), Paclitaxel (P); Nitrogen Mustard (NM);
>Vinorelbine (V); Topotecan (T); Etoposide (E); Gemcitabine (Gem) and
>Arsenic Trioxide (ARS).

Bomber
The first part is types of cancers treated and their abbreviations (self explanitory), the other cytotoxic agents compared are existing drugs known to be cytotoxic to tumours. Included here are chemotheraputical drugs as well as drugs that kill both cancerous and human cells (eg arsenic trioxide is a powerful termite killer only used on certain termites, and nitrogen mustard is nerve gas)

IC50 results for all 23 studies revealed a
>Median of 8.8 ug/ml and a Mean of 8.6 +/- 1 ug/ml (SEM). Mean IC50
>(ug/ml) by tumor type revealed Sar = 3.1; GI = 6.3; Bre = 7.8; Gyn =
>9.6; NSCLC = 14.5.

Bomber
IC50 is basically the amount of a compound required to kill tumours in 50% of specimans (measured in nanograms of compound to milligrams of tumour specimen) As can be seen, different cancers require different dosages, but here the worst scenario was only requiring 14.5 nanograms of bec per milligram of cancer tumour to have a 50% kill factor.
8.6 was the mean (average of all tumours tested)

A comparison of Mean IC50 values for BEC against
>other drugs revealed correlation coefficients (R values) for NM of
>0.76 (p<0.001) and for Gem of 0.45 (p<0.05) but no correlation with
>T, E, CDDP, P, V or ARS.

This means that the amount of bec required to kill 50% of tumours was less than 1/1000th of Gemcitabine, and less than 1/200th of nitrogen mustard. Other drugs were not compared in this study.

Under Australian Special Access
>Experimental Drug Use Guidelines, 8 patients have received IV
>infusions of BEC at doses of 50 mg/m2 to 125 mg/m2, daily X 5 for 2
>weeks/month, for a total of 10 cycles to date. Toxicities have
>included rigors, fever, chemical phlebitis and reversible elevations
>of the transaminases.

These are basically minor side effects for those intraveinously treated with bec (and bear in mind all "special access" patients are terminally ill with little resistance left)

No hematologic, renal, cardiac or neurological
>toxicities were observed.

Basically no toxicities of the blood, heart, brain or liver were diagnosed.

Dose escalations and assessments of
>response continue. Conclusions: BEC reveals cytotoxic activity in
>human tumors. The ex vivo activity profile of BEC correlates with NM
>& Gem. Preliminary results indicate that BEC can be administered IV
>at up to 125 mg/m2. Cell death assays provide drug and disease
>specific information that can streamline novel agent development.
>Supported by The Vanguard Cancer Foundation and the Tina Robinson
>Cancer Research Fund.

You should now know the last bit from Bomber's "bush lingo" lessons.

Arthurd, I presume this is not in a test tube, it's ex vivo (in vitro is in a test tube), it's fresh tumours treated outside the human body, and the latter case is humans treated to test side effects and toxicities of bec.

Will be interesting to see how loud your medico friend laughs when he reads my interpretation, but I bet you can understand mine better than his (although no doubt less accurate)

Cheers
Bomber