Effects of Ginkgo biloba on chemically-induced mammary tumors in rats receiving tamoxifen

BMC Complementary and Alternative Medicine

Research Article

Luís Fernando Barbisan¹  Maria Aparecida Marchesan Rodrigues²  Kelly Silva Furtado³  Marcos Correa Dias³ 

[1] Department of Morphology, UNESP - Univ Estadual Paulista, Institute of Biosciences, 18618-970, Botucatu, SP, Brazil;Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, UNESP - Univ Estadual Paulista, 18618-970, Botucatu, SP, Brazil;Post-Graduation Program in Pathology, School of Medicine, UNESP - Univ Estadual Paulista, 18618-970, Botucatu, SP, Brazil;

关键词: Tamoxifen;    Selective estrogen receptor modulator;    Complementary and alternative medicine;    Rat;    Mammary carcinogenesis;   

DOI  :  10.1186/1472-6882-13-93

 received in 2012-09-14, accepted in 2013-04-24,  发布年份 2013

来源: Springer

【 摘 要 】

BackgroundGinkgo biloba extract (GbE) is used extensively by breast cancer patients undergoing treatment with Tamoxifen (TAM). Thus, the present study investigated the effects of GbE in female Sprague–Dawley (SD) rats bearing chemically-induced mammary tumors and receiving TAM.MethodsAnimals bearing mammary tumors (≥1 cm in diameter) were divided into four groups: TAM [10 mg/kg, intragastrically (i.g.)], TAM plus GbE [50 and 100 mg/kg, intraperitoneally (i.p.)] or an untreated control group. After 4 weeks, the therapeutic efficacy of the different treatments was evaluated by measuring the tumor volume (cm3) and the proportions of each tumor that were alive, necrotic or degenerative (mm2). In addition, labeling indexes (LI%) were calculated for cell proliferation (PCNA LI%) and apoptosis (cleaved caspase-3 LI%), expression of estrogen receptor-alpha (ER-α) and p63 biomarkers.ResultsOverall, the tumor volume and the PCNA LI% within live tumor areas were reduced by 83% and 99%, respectively, in all TAM-treated groups when compared to the untreated control group. GbE treatment (100 mg/kg) reduced the proportions of live (24.8%) and necrotic areas (2.9%) (p = 0.046 and p = 0.038, respectively) and significantly increased the proportion of degenerative areas (72.9%) (p = 0.004) in mammary tumors when compared to the group treated only with TAM. The expression of ER-α, p63 and cleaved caspase-3 in live tumor tissues was not modified by GbE treatment.ConclusionsCo-treatment with 100 mg/kg GbE presented a slightly beneficial effect on the therapeutic efficacy of TAM in female SD rats bearing mammary tumors.

【 授权许可】

Unknown   
© Dias et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2013. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.