Experimental Treatment of Prostate Cancer Models with Rh2, an Isolated Ginsenoside Compound

摘要

Ginseng is commonly used in herbal preparations for traditional Chinese medicine Rh2, one of the ginsenosides, has been shown to suppress growth%th and induce apoptosis in a number of cancer cell lines both in vitro and in vivo To evaluate the combined efficacy of RH2 and two chemotherapeutic agents, Taxol and mitoxantrone, mice bearing the LNCaP prostate tumor xenograft were treated with corn oil (po) and saline (iv), Rh2 (50 mg/kg po daily), Taxol (6 mg/kg iv on day 1, 4, 15 and 18), mitoxantrone (2%5 mg/kg iv on day 1, 4, 15 and 18), Rh2 + Taxol and Rh2 + mitoxantrone Tumor volumes were measured twice weekly for 4 weeks. Serum PSA were tested using ELISA. Student t-test was performed on the data acquired and results showed statistically significant differences exist between the tumour growth ratio of control group and Rh2 + Taxol treatment group (P<0.05) from day 9 No statistical significant differences existed between the control group and the Rh2, Taxol or mitoxantrone monotreatment groups. Taxol monotherapy and Taxol + Rh2 combination showed significant (p<0.05) and very significant (p<0.01) inhibitory effect on serum PSA levels. Overall, our results suggest that oral administration of Rh2 can sensitize low dose of Taxol in the treatment of mice bearing subcutaneous LNCaP prostate tumors and exhibits potential as a chemosensitizer of Taxol for the treatment of prostate cancer.