Anticancer effect of paclitaxel

by Lee Dora none

Paclitaxel, a substance extracted from yew, is widely used against terminal cancer due to its strong anti-cancer effects. It can only be extracted from yew fruits, this is also the reason why paclitaxel is expensive.

Paclitaxel is an effective and commonly used cancer drug, but it can only be taken from the needle-like leaves of an endangered plant, people's demand for the drug is likely to exceed the productive capacity of this tree. In recent years, scientists announced that they had been isolated this compound from the Hazel-tree and fungi. This discovery may provide a sufficient new sources for the drug, may also make the costs significantly reduced.

Paclitaxel is the largest sales cancer drug in the world. It was used for treating cervical and breast cancer, many breast cancer healers are still taking the drug to prevent cancer recurrence. Although this drug supplement is still abundant, but the demand will be increased very soon, investigators are testing the drug's curative effect on Alzheimer's disease, diversity hardening and other types of cancer. If the drug has an effect on these diseases above, then the drug will be in short supply. Because the production of this drug is first extracted lead compounds from the needle-like leaves of Pacific yew, and then processing it.

Pacific yew is an endangered plant that grows in North America Pacific Northwest Coast. Scientists have been looking for ways to improve the paclitaxel production in yew. Surprisingly, they are found a new source of the compound in another completely unrelated research. When scientists were studying the hazel tree, in order to find out why some filbert is easy to blight. This blight has been destroyed a lot of hazel trees. Scientists obtained the extracts from several types of hazel, and purified and analyzed these samples, among them they found these extracts have the chemical features of paclitaxel. Then scientists discovered that hazel leaves, twigs and fruits were containing paclitaxel, although the content is only 10% of the yew. At the same time, they also found that fungus which grows in the hazel tree also can produce paclitaxel.

The medicinal value of Taxus is mainly their extract -- secondary metabolite derivatives -- paclitaxel. According to the findings of scientists, paclitaxel is the antitumor active ingredient which first separated from the bark. It is one of the best drugs to treat metastatic ovarian cancer and breast cancer, also have a significant effect on lung cancer, esophageal cancer, can inhibit nephritis and parvovirus obviously. Paclitaxel's anticancer mechanism is: paclitaxel can combine with trace protein and promote its aggregation, inhibit cancer cell mitosis, then effectively prevent the proliferation of cancer cells.

In order to reduce the destruction of wild yew resources, pharmaceutical raw materials suppliers began to use yew branches stems parts to extract precursor compound 10 - deacetyl baccatin Ⅲ, then prepared medicinal paclitaxel by semi-synthetic methods. paclitaxel is currently recognized as the world's broad spectrum, strong activity, anti-cancer drugs, have a unique anticancer mechanism.

Internationally, the earliest report is the United States extracted paclitaxel from yew in 1971, FDA approved for clinical use in 1992, it was proven that it has curative effect on many different kinds of cancers, especially the success in the treatment of ovarian cancer, breast cancer, the cure rate is 33%, effictive rate is 75%. For 15 years, paclitaxel is the best curative effect, minimal side effects medication after adriamycin, cisplatin when people fight for various cancers.

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