Prophylaxis of mucosal toxicity by oral propantheline and cryotherapy in children with malignancies undergoing myeloablative chemo-radiotherapy.

Mucosal toxicity is an incapacitating complication of intensive chemo-radiotherapy for children with malignant disorders, and is physically and psychologically distressful. It is therefore important to minimize mucosal toxicity in those patients. In this report, the effects of the combined prophylaxis of oral cooling (cryotherapy) and administration of propantheline, an anticholinergic drug, were studied in patients (aged 2-16 year) with acute leukemias or solid tumors, who underwent myeloablative chemo-radiotherapy and autologous peripheral blood stem cell rescue from 1993 to 1997.

Protein-bound polysaccharide K induced apoptosis of the human Burkitt lymphoma cell line, Namalwa.

Protein-bound polysaccharide K (PSK), which is derived from mushrooms belonging to the Basidiomycetes genus, has been clinically used as a biological response modifier (BRM) for the treatment of epithelial cancer patients in Japan and other Asian countries. There are a large number of studies on the biological activities of PSK as regards the activation of immunocompetent cells and the potential cytotoxic effects on epithelial cancer cells. However, only a few studies have been conducted to see the direct cytotoxic effects of PSK on hematological malignant cells.