Influence of 1 and 25 Hz, 1.5 mT magnetic fields on antitumor drug potency in a human adenocarcinoma cell line.

The resistance of tumor cells to antineoplastic agents is a major obstacle during cancer chemotherapy. Many authors have observed that some exposure protocols to pulsed electromagnetic fields (PEMF) can alter the efficacy of anticancer drugs; nevertheless, the observations are not clear. We have evaluated whether a group of PEMF pulses (1.5 mT peak, repeated at 1 and 25 Hz) produces alterations of drug potency on a multidrug resistant human colon adenocarcinoma (HCA) cell line, HCA-2/1(cch). The experiments were performed including (a) exposures to drug and PEMF exposure for 1 h at the same time, (b) drug exposure for 1 h, and then exposure to PEMF for the next 2 days (2 h/day). Drugs used were vincristine (VCR), mitomycin C (MMC), and cisplatin. Cell viability was measured by the neutral red stain cytotoxicity test. The results obtained were: (a) The 1 Hz PEMF increased VCR cytotoxicity (P < 0.01), exhibiting 6.1% of survival at 47.5 microg/ml, the highest dose for which sham exposed groups showed a 19.8% of survival. For MMC at 47.5 microg/ml, the % of survival changed significantly from 19.2% in sham exposed groups to 5.3% using 25 Hz (P < 0.001). Cisplatin showed a significant reduction in the % of survival (44.2-39.1%, P < 0.05) at 25 Hz and 47.5 microg/ml, and (b) Minor significant alterations were observed after nonsimultaneous exposure of cells to PEMF and drug. The data indicate that PEMF can induce modulation of cytostatic agents in HCA-2/1(cch), with an increased effect when PEMF was applied at the same time as the drug. The type of drug, dose, frequency, and duration of PEMF exposure could influence this modulation.