Anticancer activity of aerial parts of Aerva lanata Linn Juss ex Schult against Dalton's Ascitic Lymphoma

Background and Aim: Traditional medicine has a long history of serving people all over the world. In recent years, the use of traditional medicine information in cancer research received considerable interest. Aerva lanata Linn Juss has been used in traditional and folklore medicine for the treatment of cancer. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the effect of methanol (known as MEAL) and aqueous extracts (known as AEAL) of the aerial parts of Aerva lanata Linn Juss against intraperitoneally injected Dalton's Ascitic Lymphoma (DAL) cell lines in Swiss albino mice. Materials and methods: DAL cells were injected intraperitoneally (1x10(6) cells/ml/mouse) to the mice. The MEAL and AEAL at a dose of 200 mg/kg body weight were administered orally for 14 consecutive days to the tumor bearing group of animals. Derived parameters, haematological parameters, serum enzyme and lipid parameters were measured and compared to the cancer control group. 5-Flurouracil (20 mg/kg) was used as a standard. Results: Both MEAL and AEAL decreased average increase in body weight, reduced the packed cell volume, viable tumor cell count and increased the life span of DAL treated mice and brought back the haematological parameters, serum enzyme and lipid profile near to normal values. All the values were found to be statistically significant with cancer control group at p < 0.01. These observations are suggestive of the protective effect of extracts in Dalton's Ascitic Lymphoma (DAL). Conclusion: All these findings enable to concluded that MEAL and AEAL possess a protective effect against DAL. (C) 2011 Elsevier GmbH. All rights reserved.