Researchers at the University of Missouri have announced promising findings from mouse studies of prostate cancer. They studied a combination of nanoparticles of radioactive gold with a compound found in green tea, EGCG (also known as epi-gallo-catechin-gallate).
This combination of agents worked better than chemotherapy at suppressing and shrinking human prostate tumors that had been implanted into the mice. The combo also seems to be less toxic than most commonly used chemotherapeutic agents. The tea compound acts as a limousine or a chaperone to move the teensy gold particles into the prostate where their radioactivity can have the greatest effect on the tumor. The tumors were reduced in size by 70 to 80 percent. The researchers anticipate further studies in larger animals such as dogs before moving on to human clinical trials.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, online July 16, 2012
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