Speaker
Description
Breast cancer remains a major global public health concern due to its continuously rising incidence rate across a variety of demographics. An estimated 2.3 million new cases have made breast cancer higher in incidence rate than the commonly reported lung cancer. Furthermore, women in developing countries have higher mortality rates, 15.3 compared to 11.3 per 100 000 but a much lower incidence rate (30.8 compared to 54.1 per 100,000) associated with women in developed countries. The 5-year breast cancer survival rate in Sub-Saharan Africa is recorded at 40%. Research on cancer treatments has shifted to natural products due to the numerous negative effects of conventional breast cancer treatments, such as chemotherapy, hormone receptor therapy, and surgery. Throughout history, traditional medicine has successfully treated a variety of illnesses with natural ingredients. The variety of plants and their advantages, main and secondary phytocompounds, make them a cost-effective cancer treatment option with few adverse effects. Molecular oxygen, photosensitizer (PS), and light are the three components of photodynamic therapy (PDT), an alternative cancer therapy. Pheophorbide-a and hypericin, two naturally derived PS, were utilized to study the medicinal effects against breast cancer cells. Hypericin is extracted from Hypericum perforatum, while pheophorbide-a is a chlorophyll derivative. This study utilized cell viability assay, flow cytometry, and morphological analysis to evaluate the efficacy of these PSs. MTT (3-[4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl]-2,5 diphenyl tetrazolium bromide) assay showed significant cell death at 0.37 µM for pheophorbide-a and 0.07 µM for hypericin, while morphological analysis showed altered cellular morphology, also confirmed by initiation of apoptosis. Our study shows a promising cost-effective treatment modality for breast cancer due to the fact that it is plant derived.
