Biology and Medicine

Abstract

Cytotoxicity of neoplastic drugs Gefitinib, Cisplatin, 5-FU, Gemcitabine, and Vinorelbine on human cervical cancer cells (HeLa)

M Ahmed, K Jamil

A recent study reports that more than 99% of cases of cervical cancer worldwide contain HPV DNA. Hence, treatment options for cervical cancers are difficult due to multiplicity of the disease. Chemotherapy uses strong anticancer chemicals to kill cancer cells but to kill the viruses clinicians administer combination of drugs or higher doses of chemotherapy to control advanced cervical cancer and this practice causes severe side effects. Numerous cancer patients fail standard chemotherapy or develop resistance to chemotherapy during the course of treatment. Hence the aim of this investigation was to determine the chemo sensitivity of the five commonly used neoplastic drugs such as Geftinib, Cisplatin, 5-FU, Gemcitabine and Vinorelbine in vitro, and compare its toxicity on cervical cancer cells (HeLa) using lymphocytes (nucleated cells) as controls. Cytotoxicity in vitro was determined using the MTT assay; LC50 for all the drugs was calculated by regression equation. The morphological change of cells was recorded using Inverted Microscopy. DNA damage studies by comet assay determined the extent of single strand breaks in the DNA and these results were statistically determined using Standard deviation and compared with various treatments in cancer cells (HeLa) and control cells. All the results were statistically analyzed and recorded. From these studies we could determine that cisplatin was the most toxic drug and vinorelbine was least toxic. The order of toxicity (LC50) of the neoplastic drugs was Cisplatin (13μM) > Gefitinib (20μM) > Gemcitabine (35μM) > 5-FU (40μM) > Vinorelbine (48μM). Further, we could determine the toxicity of the combination of drugs using sub-lethal doses of each drug.