Medical News

Abstract

<h3>Chinese tree yields drug effective against cancer</h3> Ten of 17 patients with advanced cancer had favorable short-term responses to camptothecin sodium in a preliminary, dose-establishment study at NCI Encouraging preliminary clinical results with a chemotherapeutic agent derived from a Chinese tree have been reported by investigators at the National Cancer Institute. Favorable short-term responses were seen in 10 of 16 patients with advanced metastatic solid tumors and in one patient with acute myelogenous leukemia treated with camptothecin sodium. The responses were only brief—the median was just under two months. But coming at the end of long courses of disease, these responses may have some clinical significance, Jeffrey A. Gottlieb, MD, told the American Association for Cancer Research in Philadelphia. Camptothecin is a novel alkaloid, unrelated to any other chemotherapeutic agent. It is derived from the heartwood of<i>Camptotheca acuminata</i>, a tree native to the mainland of China. As a