I hope this does not overwhelm you with information, so please read at your leisure when your ready. I received permission from Tiina Sepp to post the following, about her experience with trying to control Osteosarcoma with Artemisinin.
This also includes information on its use in humans.
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Tiina wrote:
I would not mind you posting it, and a follow-up story as well, especially now when I am having first hand experience using artemisinine for a Great Dane after failed chemotherapy. We used artemisinine ordered from:
http://holleypharma.com/
No prescription needed for artemisinine. Used in combination with COX2 inhibitors (Previcox or Meloxicam)
http://carcin.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/bgi240v1
Shortly, 8 year old Great Dane was diagosed having osteosarcoma when at vet with limping. It appeared that many other pedigree members had same disese even in same location convincing me that this disease has a very strong genetic factor. Her affected hind leg was amputated as she was fit and muscular. She managed as well with 3 legs as with 4. Was walking already after surgery and was running and playing as usual. Had no problems with having her pees and poos on 3 legs. She was put on metronomic chemo therapy, weekly doses, with carboplatin and daily COX2 inhibitors which gave no side effects at all, but for the end of the chemo cycle she became tired so her hind leg started to give up and did not hold on. In retrospect we can tell that she became tired because of metastases into the lung.
When her chemo finished, we switched her over to artemisinine twice a day, and Previcox once a day. Already on next day we saw a fantastic instant effect of artemisinine- dog who was unable to walk started to move and eat again, play and run as she did before her diagnosis! Same effect was reported for other dogs who were on artemisinine, they had fantastic quality of life until the very advanced stage of cancer and some even recovered.
Her follow-up Xray after chemo showed pea sized metastases all over in lungs but on artemisinine dog did not show in any way that she was affected by that and continued her usual lifestyle and her daily forest walks, had a good appetite, was in good cheerful mood palying with other dogs and did not lost any weight. We discovered that it all was due to artemisinine when we run out of it for almost 2 weeks because of Christmas delay in postal delivery. Dog slowed down for the end of first week, her hind leg became too weak and gave up and she started to cough some blood at nights, her eyes turned red and watery and she lost appetite. Luckily artemisinine arrived and again, after having it she was back to her normal self for next day, stopped coughing at nights and enjoyed life again as there was nothing wrong with her.
Artemisinine in combination with Previcox, which additionally acts as a adjuvant boosting up artemisinine effect. It did not stop her cancer but slowed cancer down and enormously improved her quality of life until the very last days. Usually she had 5 days artemisinine and was 2 days off as recommended. Her last weeks she went worse and started to cough on her two days off drug so we started to give her artemisinine continuously.
When her tumours in lung went physicallly so large that they started to cause neurological effects by pressing vestibulatory nerve circuit nerves, she became dizzy, lost coordination and was not able to walk. Also it was difficult for her to drink. On her last night she started to vomit so did not keep her drugs in and was consequently in pain, so she was put to sleep. She enjoyed fantastic quality of life until the very advanced stage of cancer, I have never seen something similar before, and this was really important for her owner.
Artemisinine did not stop her cancer but gave her 3 extra months of normal quality life when every extra day was important for owner. They celebrated Christmas and New Year together and her 9nth birthday.
Tiina
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Tiina Sepp wrote:
I think as artemisinine acts as powerful angiogenesis inhibitor, antinflammatory effect is also reported, it is suppressing metastases osteosarcoma is very prone to and which are causing mortality, usually metastases to lung. It would be ideal to use as an adjuvant to basic chemotherapy but from dog osteosarcoma lists there are reports that dogs who even did not had amputation and chemotherapy, artemisinine prolonged their lifespan up to 2 years.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artemisinin
Anticancer Res. 2004 Jul-Aug;24(4):2277-80. Related Articles, Links Artemisinin induces apoptosis in human cancer cells.
Singh NP, Lai HC.
Department of Bioengineering, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195-7962, USA.
Narendra@u.washington.edu
BACKGROUND: Artemisinin is a chemical compound extracted from the wormwood plant, Artemisia annua L. It has been shown to selectively kill cancer cells in vitro and retard the growth of implanted fibrosarcoma tumors in rats. In the present research, we investigated its mechanism of cytotoxicity to cancer cells. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Molt-4 cells, in complete RPMI-1640 medium, were first incubated with 12 microM of human holotransferrin at 37 degrees C in a humid atmosphere of 5% CO2 for one hour. This enhanced the iron supply to the cells. The cells were then pelleted and transferred to a complete RPMI-1640 containing 200 microM of an analog dihydroartemisinin ‘DHA’ and incubation was started ‘0 h’. In addition, some culture samples were treated with holotransferrin alone and some controls were assayed without neither holotransferrin nor DHA treatment. Cells were counted and DNA diffusion assay was used to evaluate apoptosis and necrosis in each sample at 0 h and at 1, 2, 4 and 8 h of incubation. RESULTS: DHA treatment significantly decreased cell counts and increased the proportion of apoptosis in cancer cells compared to controls ‘chi2=4.5, df=1, p<0.035’. Addition of holotransferrin significantly further decreased cell counts ‘chi2=4.5, df=1, p<0.035’ and increased apoptosis ‘chi2=4.5, df=1, p<0.035’. No necrotic cells were observed. CONCLUSION: This rapid induction of apoptosis in cancer cells after treatment with DHA indicates that artemisinin and its analogs may be inexpensive and effective cancer agents.
http://ctd.mdibl.org/detail.go;jsessionid=5D160BBF6A6753A606204FB070350846?type=ref&db=PUBMED&acc=15878303
Jung M, Tak J, Chung WY, Park KK.
Department of Chemistry, Yonsei University, Seoul 120-749, Republic of Korea.
mjung@yonsei.ac.kr
Non acetal-type derivatives at C-12 of artemisinin and their novel dimers including a fullerene conjugate were synthesized and some of them showed potent in vivo antiangiogenic activity on chorioallantoic membrane higher than or comparable to those of fumagillin and thalidomide.
PMID: 16380253 PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
http://www.mwt.net/~drbrewer/canart1.htm
