Vol. 9, No 1, 2002 pp. 70 - 73
UC 616.62-006
WILL HUMAN URINARY BLADDER CARCINOMA RESPOND
TO TREATMENT WITH ALKYLPHOSPHOCHOLINES AND
CURCUMIN?
Spiro M. Konstantinov1, Aleksandar
Kostovski1, Martin R. Berger2
1Dept. of Pharmacology and Toxicology,
Medical University, Faculty of Pharmacy, Sofia, Bulgaria
2Unit of Toxicology and Chemotherapy,
German Cancer Research Center, Heidelberg, Germany
E-mail: Konstantinov@pharmfac.acad.bg
Summary: Alkylphosphocholines (APC) constitute a new group of antineoplastic
agents without hematological toxicity: their first clinically available
derivative hexade-cylphosphocholine (miltefosine) is locally used to control
skin metastases of breast cancer. Curcumin is a natural product possesing
many attractive pharmacological effects such as inhibition of inflammation,
mutagenesis and cancerogenesis. Since intravesical chemotherapy represents
a form of topical treatment we investigated whether new APC with long alkyl
chain and the yellow non-toxic pigment curcumin would be active against
5637 and EJ bladder cancer cell lines. The antineoplastic ac-tivity was
inversely related with the alkyl chain length of the respective APC. Erucylphosphocholine
and its congener with modified phosphocholine head erucylphospho-N.N.N-trimethylpropanolamine
were the most effective deriva-tives. Interestingly, curcumin caused equal
cytotoxic efficacy. The distinct antineoplastic effects lead us to predict
that urinary bladder instillation of APC or curcumin will be of therapeutic
benefit for patients with urinary bladder neoplasias.
Key words: Bladder carcinoma cells, alkylphosphocholines, curcumin,
erucylphospho-choline, topical treatment
