Administration Method of Adjuvant Tegafur-Uracil and Leucovorin Calcium in Patients with Resected Colorectal Cancer: A Phase III Study

S. M, Birudala G, Jamous YF, Alshargi O, Kotha KK, Sudhan HH, Mani RR, Muthumanickam A, Niranjan D, Jain NK, Agrawal A, Jadon AS, Mayasa V, Jha NK, Kolesarova A, Slama P, Roychoudhury S. Reactive oxygen species mediated apoptotic death of colon cancer cells: therapeutic potential of plant derived alkaloids

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most deaths causing diseases worldwide. Several risk factors including hormones like insulin and insulin like growth factors (e.g., IGF-1) have been considered responsible for growth and progression of colon cancer. Though there is a huge advancement in the available screening as well as treatment techniques for CRC. There is no significant decrease in the mortality of cancer patients. Moreover, the current treatment approaches for CRC are associated with serious challenges like drug resistance and cancer re-growth. Given the severity of the disease, there is an urgent need for novel therapeutic agents with ideal characteristics. Several pieces of evidence suggested that natural products, specifically medicinal plants, and derived phytochemicals may serve as potential sources for novel drug discovery for various diseases including cancer. On the other hand, cancer cells like colon cancer require a high basal level of reactive oxygen species (ROS) to maintain its own cellular functions. However, excess production of intracellular ROS leads to cancer cell death via disturbing cellular redox homeostasis. Therefore, medicinal plants and derived phytocompounds that can enhance the intracellular ROS and induce apoptotic cell death in cancer cells via modulating various molecular targets including IGF-1 could be potential therapeutic agents. Alkaloids form a major class of such phytoconstituents that can play a key role in cancer prevention. Moreover, several preclinical and clinical studies have also evidenced that these compounds show potent anti-colon cancer effects and exhibit negligible toxicity towards the normal cells. Hence, the present evidence-based study aimed to provide an update on various alkaloids that have been reported to induce ROS-mediated apoptosis in colon cancer cells via targeting various cellular components including hormones and growth factors, which play a role in metastasis, angiogenesis, proliferation, and invasion. This study also provides an individual account on each such alkaloid that underwent clinical trials either alone or in combination with other clinical drugs. In addition, various classes of phytochemicals that induce ROS-mediated cell death in different kinds of cancers including colon cancer are discussed.

Effects of sevoflurane and propofol on postoperative nausea and vomiting in patients with colorectal cancer placed under general anesthesia: a systematic review and meta-analysis

Background

This study sought to explore the effects of sevoflurane and propofol on postoperative nausea and vomiting (PONV) in patients with colorectal cancer (CRC). Sevoflurane inhalation anesthesia has the advantages of short induction time, stable hemodynamic, stable anesthesia maintenance and short recovery time, and its anesthetic effect is similar to that of propofol, so it is worthy of comparative analysis.

Methods

The PubMed, Cochrane, Web of Science, Embase, clinical research register and CQVIP databases were searched to retrieve the data of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) published between October 2000 and October 2021 on the effects of sevoflurane and propofol on nausea and vomiting after laparoscopic surgery in patients with CRC. Applying the inclusion criteria, the literature selection, data extraction, and quality evaluation assessments were carried out for the included articles. The I2 test was used to evaluate the heterogeneity between the studies, and the meta-analysis was performed using RevMan 5.2.6 software provided by Cochrane.

Results

A total of 12 RCTs were included in this meta-analysis. There was statistically significant differences in changes in postoperative heart rate [odds ratio (OR) =3.55, 95% confidence interval (CI): 2.40, 5.27, P<0.00001, I2=0%, Z=6.30], mean artery pressure (MAP) (OR =2.58, 95% CI: 2.04, 3.26, P<0.00001, I2=58%, Z=7.87), the incidence of PONV (OR =1.73, 95% CI: 1.38, 2.17, P<0.00001, I2=46%, Z=4.78), and the incidence of postoperative disturbance of consciousness (OR =2.09, 95% CI: 1.62, 3.07, P<0.00001, I2=63%, Z=5.67) between the experimental group and the control group.

Conclusions

Combining anesthesia with sevoflurane and propofol had good prevention and treatment effects for PONV in patients with CRC who underwent a laparoscopy and had a moderate central sedation effect.

Dihydropyrimidine Dehydrogenase-Mediated Resistance to 5-Fluorouracil: Mechanistic Investigation and Solution

5-Fluorouracil (5-FU) is one of the most widely used chemotherapeutics for the treatment of cancers associated with the aerodigestive tract, breast, and colorectal system. The efficacy of 5-FU is majorly affected by dihydropyrimidine dehydrogenase (DPD) as it degrades more than 80% of administered 5-FU into an inactive metabolite, dihydrofluorouracil. Herein we discuss the molecular mechanism of this inactivation by analyzing the interaction pattern and electrostatic complementarity of the DPD-5-FU complex. The basis of DPD overexpression in cancer cell lines due to significantly distinct levels of the miRNAs (miR-134, miR-27b, and miR-27a) compared to normal cells has also been outlined. Additionally, some kinases including sphingosine kinase 2 (SphK2) have been reported to correlate with DPD expression. Currently, to address this problem various strategies are reported in the literature, including 5-FU analogues (bypass the DPD-mediated inactivation), DPD downregulators (regulate the DPD expression levels in tumors), inhibitors (as promising adjuvants), and formulation development loaded with 5-FU (liposomes, nanoparticles, nanogels, etc.), which are briefly discussed in this Review.