Reliable Cancer Therapies

Artemisia annua or Sweet Wormwood is a common type of wormwood native to Asia, but naturalized throughout the world. The main constituent, artemisinin, and its derivatives, such as artesunate, are currently used as part of the treatment of malaria. Anti-cancer properties have also been demonstrated in cells and laboratory animals.
A plant extract is a complex mixture of different, often closely related compounds that can act on different targets, making it an interesting cocktail of natural origin. Because of the generally low concentration of the individual constituents, low toxicity can be expected, whereas with regards to biological activity synergism is often observed.

RCT funded a project where a specific extract of Artemisia annua was evaluated as an anti-cancer therapy.
In this project, coordinated by Dr. Arne Heyerick, a number of products derived from Artemisia annua were evaluated.
The ethanolic extract of Artemisia annua was tested in vitro in cancer cell lines from 3 different cancers (breast, colon, pancreas) and compared with artemisinin, the main active constituent of Artemisia annua, artesunate, a semi-synthetic derivative of Artemisinin and a water extract. From these in vitro results, the ethanolic extract and artesunate were selected to be tested in vivo.

The ethanolic extract and artesunate were tested for its safety and efficacy in three mouse models in three different settings.

-          In Swiss nude mice bearing subcutaneous Lovo human colon tumors at Oncodesign, France
-          In a subcutaneous human pancreatic xenograft model at Precos, UK
-          In a subcutaneous human endometrium xenograft model at University of Leuven, Belgium

In all three experiments the ethanolic extract and the artesunate orally did not show a significant effect on tumor growth in mice, despite good in vitro results. The absence of clear antitumor effects is likely due to the overall low bioavailability of artemisinin from the ethanolic extract and artesunate. The full reports are available on demand.
Based on these results, RCT decided to temporarily put all activities regarding Artemisia annua on hold.
However, RCT realizes that the extract  might not have explored thoroughly and therefore RCT would like to encourage other groups to further investigate the potential use of Artemisia annua-derived products in cancer models.  The extract can be obtained from RCT upon request.