Natural Medicine/HESA-A: A landscape in the treatment of malignant diseases

AHMADI A¹, MOHAGHEGHI MA¹, KARIMI M¹, FAGHIHZADEH S², GOLESTANHA SA³,

 ¹Institute of cancer, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

² Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

³ Shahed Medical University, Tehran, Iran

Background: Recent statistics indicate that the overall cancer incidence in the world, in spite of billions of dollars spent on research each year, has not changed significantly in the recent years. Now after controlling infectious diseases by efforts of scientists like Paul Erlich, Cancers like prostate, breast, lung, and colon has become the most causes of mortality and morbidity with a considerable disease burden. Allopathic medicine commonly practiced currently is only 100 years old and has no answer to many diseases especially malignancies. Although herbal medicine has been around for thousands of years, no proper attention and integration exists between it and allopathic medicine. HESA-A as a natural biological compound, is a mixture of herbal-marine. It has shown anticancer properties in different clinical studies. It has shown considerable results in the treatment of some malignancies.

Methods:  In a prospective non-controlled clinical trial with the aim of investigating therapeutic effects of HESA-A in 50 patients with advanced colon cancer and liver metastatasis, after 6 months of therapy, patients' functional impairment (according Karnofsky performance scale) improved significantly.

Results: This study showed anti-cancer effects of HESA-A, a herbal-marine compound, in patients with end stage metastatic colon cancer. Also no significant adverse effect was seen during the study.

Conclusion: Other studies have confirmed a selective trend in this compound toward cancer cells. Also antioxidant properties, apoptotic effect and immunomodulator role of the product have been studied in different studies and they may be effective mechanisms of HESA-A function against tumor cells. We hope further studies on HESA-A result in an increase in survival and quality of life in cancer patients.

 Keywords: HESA-A, Cancer, Quality of life,

 Word count:     This abstract including the title, authors’ names and affiliations has 1851 characters without spaces

 Address of the presenting author (including valid fax number and email):

 Presenting author: Amrollah Ahmadi, Dr, MD

Institution: Institute of cancer, Tehran University of Medical Sciences, Tehran, Iran

 Address: Emam Khomeini hospital, Dr Gharib Avenue, Tehran, Iran

Tel (work):+9821 66940021

Fax (work): +9821 66933399