The therapeutic tree

THE latest source that promises
new hope for cancer patients is an
African tree. A drug derived from the
bark of the African bush willow has
been found to hamper blood supply to
cancer cells. Tests have shown that it
can kill up to 95 per cent of solid
turnour cells by cutting off their blood supply.

The new drug, combretastatin,
developed by researchers from the
Cancer Research Campaign's Gray laboratories at Mount Vernon Hospital,
Middlesex, could have wide application. 'As more than 90 per cent of cancers are solid turnours or lumps, we are
very excited about its potential. It
opens the door for the development of
other drugs working on the same principle," says Dai Chaplin, who led the
research.

Most cancer treatments require
high doses of toxic drugs and they take
long to kill cancer cells as one centimetre of tumour can contain hundreds
of millions of cells. The new drug acts
by destroying enclothelial cells lining
the blood vessels which supply blood
to turnours. By killing one of these
enclothelial cells, more than 1,000
tumour cells are killed.