Cephalotaxus Fortunei
From HerbLab, herbal encyclopedia of Chinese traditional medicine
Contents |
CEPHALOTAXUS FORTUNEI(三夫杉)
Pharmacopoeia of People's Republic of China says: "The seed of the plant is sweet, acrid and astringent, while its branches and leaves are bitter, astringent and cold."
It is the dried leaves, seeds or bark of Cephalotaxus fortunei Hock. f., or C. sinensis (Rehd. et Will) Li, C. wilsonianaHayata and C. harringtonia.
ANTICANCER PHARMACOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS
1. The herb is found to have certain inhibition on sarcoma-180 and Walker's carcinoma-256. 2. The herb has a remarkable inhibition on lymphocytic leukemia-338 in rats. 3. Harringtonine derived from the herb shows a remarkable inhibition on lymphocytic leukemia in rats. 4. The herb is a broad-spectrum anticancer drug, which has certain effect on carcinoma-14 of the uterine cervix, reticulosarcoma, cerebroma-22 and leukemia-615.
EXPERIMENTAL FORMULAS
For various malignant tumors:
One gram of cephalotaxine crystal is added to 100ml of water for boiling to dissolve the crystal completely and the boiled solution is filtered before being loaded into ampules with 2ml of the filtered solution in each containing 20mg of the crude drug. The preparation can be given intravenously after disinfection for 30 minutes. If administered intramuscularly, benzyl alcohol is added to prevent pain.
THE AUTHOR'S NOTE
Harringtomine of the herb has a good immediate effect for acute granulocytic leukemia and acute monocytic leukemia. Its cephalotaxine has certain effect on pulmonary cancer, lymphatic sarcoma, eosinophilic lymphogranuloma, gastric cancer, supramaxillary cancer, Hodgkin's disease, leiomyoma of the uterus, cancer of the esophagus, prostatic cancer and synoviosarcoma. But caution should be given to the fact that it inhibits the hematopoietic system.
According to Journal of Chinese Medicine (Vol. 3, 1978) and Bulletin of Chinese Medicinal Herbs (Vol. 12, 1977), No.187 Hospital of the People's Liberation Army administered harringtonine to treat 72 cases of leukemia and found 24 cases were cured and 38 relieved, with a total effective rate of 86.1 %. It was also reported that when used together with other anticancer drugs, harringtonine had a better effect. Treatment and Prevention of Cancers reported in 1974 that Quangzhou Association of Female Cancers used harringtonine to treat malignant trophoblastic tumor and the effective rate was found to be 37.8%.
