Curcumin pancreatitis

Data about curcunfin encapsulated in liposomes have been reported recently. The authors encapsulated curcumin into a liposomal delivery system in order to study the in vitro and in vivo effects of this compound on proliferation, apoptosis, signaling, and angiogenesis using human pancreatic carcinoma cells. Carotenoids of different polarities and in competition with cholesterol were specifically incorporated into liposomes in order to mimic the physiological uptake by cells and monitor their antioxidant capacities. ... 

Several reports have described the anticancer activity of curcumin in a variety of cancer cell lines. In vitro studies have established the activity for curcumin against breast, gastric, hepatic, pancreatic, colorectal, urinary bladder, kidney, prostate, cervical, ovarian, uterine, lung, oral, thymic, and skin cancers. Besides these cancer types, curcumin has shown in vitro therapeutic efficacy against hematological cancers including leukemia, lymphoma, and multiple myeloma. One of our early studies established that the antiproliferative effect of curcumin in human breast cancer cell lines, including hormone-dependent, hormone-independent,... 

In another clinical trial, researchers evaluated the effect of oral curcumin with piperine on the pain, and the markers of oxidative stress in patients with tropical pancreatitis (TP). Twenty patients with tropical pancreatitis were randomized to receive 500 mg of curcumin with 5 mg of piperine, or placebo, for 6 weeks, and the effects on the pattern of pain, and on red blood cell levels of malonyldialdehyde (MDA) and glutathione (GSH) were assessed. There was a significant reduction in the erythrocyte MDA levels following curcumin therapy compared with placebo with a significant increase in GSH levels. There was no corresponding improvement in pain. 

The studies from our group showed that curcumin inhibited pancreatic cancer in patients. Twenty-five patients were enrolled in this study. Patients received 8 g of curcumin orally daily until disease progression, with restaging every 2 months. Serum cytokine levels for IL-6, IL-8, IL-10, and IL-1 receptor antagonists and peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) expression of NF-kB and COX-2 were monitored. Out of 25 patients, 21 were evaluable for... 

Lev-Ari S, Vexler A, Starr A, Ashkenazy-Voghera M, Greif J, Aderka D, Ben-Yosef R. 2007. Curcumin augments gemcitabine cytotoxic effect on pancreatic adenocarcinoma cell lines. Cancer Invest 25 411-418. 

Li L, Aggarwal BB, Shishodia S, Abbruzzese J, Kurzrock R. 2004. Nuclear factor-kappaB and IkappaB kinase are constitutively active in human pancreatic cells, and their down-regulation by curcumin (diferuloylmethane) is associated with the suppression of proliferation and the induction of apoptosis. Cancer 101 2351-2362. 

Wang Z, Zhang Y, Banerjee S, Li Y, Sarkar FH. 2006c. Notch-1 down-regulation by curcumin is associated with the inhibition of cell growth and the induction of apoptosis in pancreatic cancer cells. Cancer 106 2503-2513. 

Reactive oxygen species inhibitors consisting of curcumin derivatives, (IV), were prepared by Pandol (4) and are used in treating inflammation disorders associated with pancreatitis. 

Gukovsky et al. reported that curcumin ameliorates pancreatitis in two rat models. In... 

Bisht S, Mizuma M, Feldmann G, Ottenhof NA, Hong S-M, Pramanik D et al. Systemic administration of polymeric nanoparticle-encapsulated curcumin (NanoCurc) blocks tumor growth and metastases in preclinical models of pancreatic cancer. Mol Cancer Then 2010 9(8) 2255-2264. 

Sun M, Estrov Z, Ji Y, Coombes KR, Harris DH, Kurzrock R (2008) Curcumin (difemloylmethane) alters the expression profiles of microRNAs in human pancreatic cancCT cells. Mol Cancer Ther 7 464—473... 

Li Y, Revalde JL, Reid G, Paxton JW (2011) Modulatory effects of curcumin on multi-drug resistance-associated protein 5 in pancreatic cancer cells. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol 68 603-610... 

Kanai M, Yoshimura K, Asada M, Imaizumi A, Suzuki C, Matsumoto S, Nishimura T, Mori Y, Masui T, Kawaguchi Y, Yanagihara K, Yazumi S, Chiba T, Guha S, Aggarwal BB (2011) A phase I/II study of gemcitabine-based chemotherapy plus curcumin for patients with gemcitabine-resistant pancreatic cancer. Cancer Chemother Pharmacol... 

---