Plants hold key to developing future cancer treatments

Cancer care relies on complex therapies involving radioactive materials and sophisticated drugs and has come far from past remedies based on plants and herbs.

Scientists warn that there is still a need to understand the botanical roots of tumours treatments to maintain new sources of drugs and to make sure plant resources are not overexploited. The natural world has a lot to teach us about disease.

An example is provided by Melanie-Jayne Howes, a researcher based in London. Hundreds of trees had to be cut down to make the drug. The tree has been classified as near threatened.

However, a solution has been provided. A similar drug has been found in higher concentrations in the common yew and this is now used to make paclitaxel, a treatment for ovarian and breast cancer. Basic research and understanding of plant biology has an impact on cancer treatment.

Prof Susan Short said that there are lots of different tumour types that are being discovered all the time so we still need new ideas and new drugs.

Short is leading an extensive UK trial of the cannabis-based medicine Sativex in order to treat patients with recurrent glioblastomas, an aggressive form of brain tumours. The trial will look at the impact of the drug on people undergoing standard cancer treatment.

We will be treating patients whose primary brain tumours have grown back after standard treatments, to see if adding this plant-based drug to subsequent chemotherapy helps to keep them alive for longer and to see if it improves their quality of life.

Plants have a vital role to play in cancer therapies because they are so complex, according to Howes.

She pointed to vinblastine and vincristine, two important drugs that are used to treat cancer, as examples of past successes.

The rose periwinkle is a native of Madagascar and is grown across the world as an ornamental plant.

The periwinkle was originally used as a traditional treatment for diabetes, but later research showed it had anti-cancer properties.

The creation of cancer drugs is not the only use of plant extracts. Medicines for many other conditions are still isolated from plants.

The chemist Tu Youyou showed that artemisinin, an extract of the plant sweet wormwood, could be used to treat dementia.

Howes said that the emphasis on the power of plants to help people survive disease for longer and have better quality of life has important consequences outside the treatment of their conditions.