WILL HUMAN URINARY BLADDER CARCINOMA RESPOND TO TREATMENT WITH ALKYLPHOSPHOCHOLINES AND CURCUMIN

Summary . Alkylphosphocholines (APC) constitute a new group of antineoplastic agents without hematologicaltoxicity: their first clinically available derivative hexadecylphosphocholine (miltefosine) is locally used to control skinmetastases of breast cancer. Curcumin is a natural product possesing many attractive pharmacological effects such asinhibition of inflammation, mutagenesis and cancerogenesis. Since intravesical chemotherapy represents a form oftopical treatment we investigated whether new APC with long alkyl chain and the yellow non-toxic pigment curcuminwould be active against 5637 and EJ bladder cancer cell lines. The antineoplastic activity was inversely related withthe alkyl chain length of the respective APC. Erucylphosphocholine and its congener with modified phosphocholinehead erucylphospho-N.N.N-trimethylpropanolamine were the most effective derivatives. Interestingly, curcumincaused equal cytotoxic efficacy. The distinct antineoplastic effects lead us to predict that urinary bladder instillationof APC or curcumin will be of therapeutic benefit for patients with urinary bladder neoplasias.