A study result of novel liver cancer treatment released by the University of Hong Kong (HKU) on Friday has shown that arginase is effective on suppressing cancer cell growth.

Assistant Dean (Research) of Faculty of Medicine of HKU Tung-ping Poon said that liver cancer is the second leading cause of cancer death in Hong Kong, and conventional treatments were found not effective for advanced liver cancer.

Conventional chemotherapy depends on drugs that are cytotoxic to cancer cells, but these drugs are also cytotoxic to normal cells, said Poon.

A study done by HKU and the Polytechnic University of Hong Kong found that arginine depletion in cancer cells resulted in inhibition of cell cycle and hence cancer cell proliferation, but did not result in significant adverse effects on the normal cells.

According to Poon, arginase was a naturally occurring enzyme that degrades arginine, with urea as an end-product. To further enhance the effectiveness of arginase, a Human Recombinant Arginase has been developed as a new drug to allow its therapeuticuse in treating liver cancer.

Results in experimental research and pre-clinical studies done on rats and monkeys showed positive results that the new drug was effective in inhibiting the growth of human liver cancer and no observed side effects were found.

This is the first drug developed in Hong Kong that has been able to come to the stage of clinical trial. It has currently been synthesized in the Chinese mainland with quality compatible with the Chinese State Federal Food and Drug Administration's requirements for the Investigational New Drug Status for human trials.

A clinical trial in Hong Kong Queen Mary Hospital will start in December 2004.

(Xinhua News Agency December 4, 2004)