Tree bark might treat rare eye cancer.

March 17, 2007

Tree bark might treat rare eye cancer Fewer side effects than radiation for childhood disease, say researchersReutersUpdated: 9:46 a.m. ET March 16, 2007CHICAGO

- An extract from the bark of a South American tree might lead to

better treatments for a rare but deadly childhood eye cancer called

retinoblastoma, U.S. researchers reported Friday.Retinoblastoma

affects 1 in 15,000 children, causing about 3 percent of all cancers in

children. It forms when developing cells in the retina — the eye’s main

light sensor — go haywire and start reproducing out of control.“The

great majority of the cases exist in the developing world, where it is

a fatal disease,” said Dr. Joan O’Brien of the University of

California, San Francisco, who led the study.The cancer usually develops in children under age 6 and kills within two to four years after diagnosis if not treated.If

detected early and treated with a combination of chemotherapy agents or

radiation, 90 to 95 percent of children live. But conventional

treatment has significant side effects.Combination

chemotherapy can cause hearing loss, kidney failure and leukemia.

Radiation therapy, which is now less commonly used, disfigures the

child.In children who have the cancer in only one eye, the eyeball is sometimes replaced with an implant.“We can cure them, but at cost,” said O’Brien. “It’s important to find a cheap, easily administered, nontoxic therapy.”Cells commit suicideO’Brien

and colleagues at UCSF wanted to see whether the tree bark extract

beta-lapachone could cause the abnormal cells to commit suicide —

something it has been shown to do in a number of cancer types,

including breast and prostate cells.They

tested the extract in the laboratory and found that beta-lapachone

significantly blocked rapid cell growth of human tumor cells and that

low doses could cause damaged cells to kill themselves in a process

called apoptosis, or programmed cell death.Writing

in the journal Eye, the scientists said their findings support other

studies of the extract in different human cancers and may lead to an

effective treatment.“The nice thing about the agent is that it kills at very low doses and it appears to be selective to cancer,” O’Brien said.Substances

that zero in on cancer are less toxic because they do less harm to

healthy cells, O’Brien said. Her lab is now testing the extract in mice

with retinoblastoma to look for possible toxic side effects.Copyright

redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the

prior written consent of Reuters.URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17644352/

Population reduction, a globalist goal, allows monopoly ownership of the earth’s resources – less population means more for them! War, famine, suppressed cures for catastrophic diseases, abortion acceptance, and health-destroying, cancer-producing Monsanto monopolized genetically modified foods all reduce world population and produce big profits. - Deanna Spingola, Political Researcher.

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