Practice of using plant and synthetic derivatives of anticancer drugs among cancer patients at NICRH, Bangladesh

Abstract

Myriad lines of therapy are used to treat cancer around the world. The study was conducted on the patients of National Institute of Cancer Research (NICRH) to estimate which type of anticancer drugs are mostly being used to treat selected type of cancer (breast, cervix and throat cancer). The study was based upon two sections- literature review and cross-sectional questionnaire study design. The aim of the study is compare the therapeutic efficacy of plant and synthetic origin of anticancer drugs on the basis of their mode of action. The data taken from the literature review was used to form a list of questions; accordingly a set of variables were developed to use in the questionnaire. As the representatives of the two classes of drugs, cisplatin was selected for the platin based synthetic alkylating agents; paclitaxel was selected for the taxane and vinca alkaloid type of plant derivatives. The platin-based alkylating agents were mostly used in most of these cases while the breast cancer (36%) and cervical cancer (36%) patients were abundant in number. Cisplatin based drugs were used in both cases while antibiotics were used in treating throat cancer. The study did not put up enough evidence for the efficacy of the plant derivatives of anticancer agents (taxanes, vinca alkaloids) however, they do show major improvements in accord to the theoretical data gained from the literature.