Sabinsa’s Curcumin Efficacious with Pancreatic Cancer Patients

PISCATAWAY, N.J.—A recent University of Texas - MD Anderson Cancer Center study was published in the peer review American Association for Cancer Research's journal Clinical Cancer Research 14.14 (July 2008). Results of an eight-week human, phase II trial of the patented ingredient Curcumin C3 Complex® by Sabinsa, indicated orally-ingested curcumin is well-tolerated in pancreatic cancer patients and, despite limited absorption, curcuminoids showed biological efficacy in some patients with pancreatic cancer.
Titled “Phase II Trial of Curcumin in Patients with Advanced Pancreatic Cancer,” the peer-reviewed paper derives from a study that administered 8 g of orally-ingested C3 Complex (as determined safe in phase I trials) daily to 25 patients, with thorough evaluation of disease progression over the two-month period. Markers for disease progression - notably inflammatory transcription factor nuclear factor-kappa B (NF-kappa B) and pro-inflammatory cyclooxygenase-2 (Cox-2) enzyme levels - were monitored in the 21 patients deemed reportable for treatment response. Results indicated that C3 Complex significantly lowered expression of disease biomarkers NF-kappa B and Cox-2. Two patients showed clinical biological activity. One had ongoing stable disease for more than 18 months, and the other one had a brief, but marked, tumor regression (73 percent regression) accompanied by changed pattern in serum cytokines. No subjective or objective side effects were observed in the study.
“Pancreatic cancer remains one of the most fatal and short-prognosis cancers, with few available treatments for the disease, and virtually no overwhelmingly positive-result treatment,” said Vladimir Badmaev, M.D., Ph.D., Sabinsa Corp. vice president of scientific and medical affairs and paper co-author. “Therefore, there is an urgent search for more effective and safe therapies. This study's experimental evidence indicates that increased expression of NF-kappa B contributes to rapid progression of pancreatic cancer, and that curcumin and its derivatives can suppresses NF-kappa B activation and slow down or inhibit progression of the cancer in some patients, despite limited absorption of curcumin.”

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