Royt Madhumita, Mukherjee Sutapa, Sarkar Ruma, Biswas Jaydip
Department of Environmental Carcinogenesis & Toxicology, Chittaranjan National Cancer Institute, 37, S P Mukherjee Road, Kolkata 700 026, India.
Ther Deliv. 2011 Oct;2(10):1275-93. doi: 10.4155/tde.11.97.
Several tumor markers are overexpressed in breast cancer. Chemotherapy in breast cancer fails due to resistance to chemotherapeutic drugs. A phytochemical such as curcumin can be used in a therapeutic modality as it elicits anti-tumor effects.
Action of curcumin on the expression of several tumor markers, such as protein kinase C, telomerase, NF-kappaB and histone deacetylase in MCF-7 (ER positive), MDA-MB-231 (ER negative), MCF- 12F (control) and also in mice mammary tumors were investigated.
Curcumin downregulated the expression of tumor markers both in vitro and in vivo and sensitized tumor cells to the chemotherapeutic drugs cyclophosphamide and paclitaxel.
Curcumin may be of considerable value in synergistic therapy of cancer such that the drug dose level could be minimized reducing the associated toxicity.
