Breast cancer is the commonest cancer among women and has rapid increasing rate annually. At present, western cancer therapy by surgery, radiation, and anticancer drug have not been fully effective, and have many side effect. So many interests are given to herbal medicine on cancer treatment in recently.
This study was designed to investigate the effects of Curcuma longa L.(CL) on MDA-MB-231 human breast cancer cells and DMBA-induced breast cancer in rats.
In this experiment, MDA-MB-231 cells were cultured in cell culture plates. 0.0625, 0.125, 0.25, 0.5, 1.0 mg/㎖ of CL extract were tested for their anti-proliferative effects on MDA-MB-231 cells by MMT assay. And we induced breast cancer in rats. The changes in tumor's weight, and the effects on proliferations of splenocyte and thymocyte were investigated. In addition, immunohistochemical expression of ER-α were also investigated.
In results, CL showed anti-proliferative effects on MDA-MB-231 cells in proportion to concentration of the CL. DMBA-induced breast cancer in rats, tumor's weight of the rat was not statistically significant, but showed a tendency to be reduced in the groups treated with CL. Proliferation rate of the rat's splenocyte and thymocyte increased in proportion to CL. In breast cancer tissue, expression of ER-α was weakened proportionately to the concentration of the CL.
In conclusions, these data suggest that CL can prevent the proliferation of breast cancer, then CL is useful to treat patient with breast cancer.