Paradoxical roles for antioxidants in tumor prevention and eradication.

Antioxidants have been shown to provide protection against carcinogens, toxic xenobiotics and oxidative stress. This has led to the hypothesis that the addition of antioxidants to cancer chemotherapeutic regimens could increase their efficacy while reducing the side effects often encountered during treatment. The work described in this study set out to test this hypothesis using two different chemotherapeutics, Paclitaxel and FUdR, and three different antioxidants, epigallocatechin gallate, phenethyl isothiocyanate and tert-butylhydroquinone.