Silver Compounds to Battle Cancer?
February 07, 2012
– Comments (10)
We all know cancer is a formidable foe, and it is one that has impacted my own family as well. I was not aware that conventional chemotherapy treatments contained platinum, nor that the metal was a major component of the treatment's toxicity to healthy cells. Primarily as a member of our species, and secondarily as a silver investor, I am hopeful that silver will ineed prove as beneficial to cancer treatment as many seem to anticipate. And as a corrollary, since silver is so much cheaper than platinum, perhaps this could ease some of the financial burden associated with the battling of this disease.
http://www.medilexicon.com/medicalnews.php?newsid=241174
lab tests have shown that it is as effective as the leading chemotherapy drug - and may have fewer side-effects.
Results from the study at the University of Leeds, published in Dalton Transactions, show that particular silver compounds are as toxic to cancer cells as the platinum-based drug Cisplatin, which is widely used to treat a range of cancers.
A major barrier to the continued development of these compounds is a lack of understanding of how they work. Over the next 12 months, research will focus on investigating how the compounds damage cancerous cells and what effects they have on healthy cells. This will establish whether these silver complexes are in fact less toxic to ordinary human tissue, and will help to design and develop the next-generation of chemotherapy drugs. This work is been carried out in collaboration with Dr. Roger Phillips at the University of Bradford and is funded by Yorkshire Cancer Research.
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