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Show Anti-cancer drugs being developed at U Dr. Arthur D. Broom is one of Utah's nationally recognized sci-1 sci-1 entists who, together with College of Pharmacy researchers, is trying try-ing to find and develop anti-(. anti-(. cancer and anti-viral drugs. Utah came to the foreground ( in cancer research when the drug ' known as "chaparral tea" was brought to the attention of doctors doc-tors at the University Medical t Center. In a national journal, : Utah professors described the case ' of an 85-year-old man who refused re-fused medical treatment for a ' severe skin cancer. The man appeared ap-peared a year later almost com-. com-. pletely cured; chaparral tea was T claimed to have cured him. In later research, pharmacists m: , i ,, . j( isolated a compound called NDGA from the creosote bush, long used by Indians of the area, j In addition to work by Utah physicians, the drug has been investigated in-vestigated at the universities of 1 Nevada and Wisconsin and is cur- 1 1 rently under scrutiny at the Can-cer Can-cer Chemotherapy National Ser-1 Ser-1 vice Center. Although preliminary reports are discouraging, unoffi- v: rial reports tell of miraculous I, L cures in isolated cases. While the exact cause of cancer remains a mystery, scientists feel that some malfunction of the cell's reproduction mechanism is " at fault. A cancer cell is an other-is other-is " wise normal cell that has "gone ' out of control." The rapidly growing grow-ing cancer cells soon begin to crowd-out normal cells and pre-'. pre-'. vent their functioning unless the abnormal cells are killed or re-j re-j ';' moved. Doctors take advantage of . the cell's fast growth rate to deli'1 de-li'1 stroy the cell. Certain chemicals known as, anti-metabolites look very much S! like the food normally used by the cancer cell. When the greedy n cells rapidly ingest this food, they l"1- find that it does not do the job. Death soon follows. NDGA has been classified as an anti-metabo-lJ'J1J lite. Using a series-of five drugs "'I such as these, doctors have been able to cure acute childhood leukemia leu-kemia in some cases, tul" Other cancer drugs are basically basi-cally i. oisons wl ich affect cancer Mj cells somewhat more than normal p cells. Strangely enough, NDGA is Dj ; not poisonous and is active against io te many disease-causing organisms. NpGA . is also being investi-jBE investi-jBE gated as to its effect on arthritis and rheumatism. Recently a link has been estab-lished estab-lished between cancer and viruses. This raises the possibility of can-j5 can-j5 cer vaccine at some future date, jji While research is continuing in t'sik a" areas Dr. Broom feels that one lailyi' sin8'e cure fr cancer is not a like-f like-f lihood. The final answer "lies in a combination of courses." While at jus" Present time surgery is often . J( tne best treatment, "radiation, ,j drugs, and even immunization" i" will continue to be important. Meanwhile, Dr. Broom and his a associates have already started working on a method of outsmart- II, 1 i"g those few cells that have al-01 al-01 t. rcady developed a bad taste for W anti-metabolites. |
