Topical administration of a newly devised anticancer agent: A novel concept of cancer chemotherapy

To evade serious systemic side-effects in cancer chemotherapy, we devised a novel injectable agent which could prevent tumor growth by its loco-regional administration and basically examined the anticancer effects with the novel product. 70% deacetylated chitin (DAC-70) was used. First, we prepared DAC-70 sol by our original technique to form a novel anti-tumor agent. The growth-inhibition was examined in vitro by WST assay method using tumor cell lines. Anticancer efficacies with the agent were evaluated in vivo using tumor-bearing animals. In in vitro studies, the DAC-70 sol demonstrated anti-proliferative effect against each tumor cell line. In in vivo studies, intra-tumor injection of the agent inhibited rapid growth of the tumors and suggested significant necrosis in the tumor masses with the prevention of enhancement of neoplastic vascular systems. Intra-peritoneal injection of CDDP/DAC-70 sol conjugates prolonged survival time of the malignant ascites-bearing animals. No evidence of serious side-effects was observed in these animals. Topical administration, not systemic use, of our own DAC-70 sol basically suggested anticancer effects in cancer treatment.