PLANT PRODUCTS PROTECTS SKIN FROM RADIOTHERAPY
Radiotherapy for
cancer involves exposing the patient or their tumor more directly to ionizing
radiation, such as gamma rays or X-rays. The radiation damages the cancer cells
irreparably. Unfortunately, such radiation is also harmful to healthy tissue,
particularly the skin over the site of the tumor, which is then at risk of hair
loss, dermatological problems and even skin cancer. As such finding ways to
protect the overlying skin are keenly sought.
Writng in the International Journal of Low
Radiation, Faruck Lukmanul Hakkim of the University of Nizwa, Oman and Nagasaki
University, Nagasaki, Japan, and colleagues there and at Macquarie University,
New South Wales, Australia, Bharathiar University, India and Konkuk University,
South Korea, explain how three ubiquitous and well-studied natural products
derived from plants can protect the skin against gamma radiation during
radiotherapy.
Hakkim and colleagues
discuss the benefits of the organic, antioxidant compounds caffeic acid (CA),
rosmarinic acid (RA) and trans-cinnamic acid (TCA) used at non-toxic
concentrations. They tested the radio protective effect of these compounds
against gamma-radiation in terms of reducing levels of reactive oxygen species
generated in skin cells by clinical relevance dose of gamma ray in the
laboratory and in terms of the damage to the genetic material DNA, specifically
double strand breaks in laboratory samples of human skin cells (keratinocytes).
They found that treating the human skin cells with CA, RA and TCA can protected
the cells by 40, 20 and 15 percent respectively from gamma ray toxicity. They
suggest that the protective effect arises because the compounds mop up the
reactive oxygen species and chemically deactivate them as well as enhancing the
body's natural DNA repair mechanisms.
The team suggests that
these compounds might best be used as skin protectants during combination
chemo- and radio-therapy. Further work is under way to investigate the clinical
potential of mixtures of the three natural products.
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