Justification and future work - Essay Example

In spite of the recent advances in treatment including chemotherapy, the survival rate of advanced colon cancer is rather poor. Hence, several institutions worldwide are funding high quality research on colorectal cancer every year to address some basic questions about the causes and ways to better prevent and treat this malignant disease in the future. One of the main reasons for taking up the present project was the grant received from a Saudi Arabian university, and the reason for choosing to study colorectal cancer (CRC) under this project is that CRC is a frequently diagnosed malignancy in Saudi Arabia (Mansoor et al., 2002), constituting 5.

5% of all cancers reported (Yassin et al., 2010). Furthermore, the incidence of CRC is increasing in Saudi Arabia, and is ranked fourth among all cancers in the Saudi population (Aljebreen, 2007). Studies have revealed that the incidence of colonic and rectal cancers in Saudi Arabia has almost doubled between 1994 and 2003, with a four-fold increase in these numbers being predicted in the next thirty years (Colorectal Cancer Awareness Campaign, http://www.facebook.com/topic.php?uid=310957583707&topic=13732).

Recent statistics reveal CRC to be the second most common cancer among Saudi males and the third most common among Saudi females (Al-Eid, 2004; Bavi et al., 2010). In the analysis presented by Aljebreen (2007), it is shown that Saudi patients present with CRC at a more advanced stage of the disease and at younger ages compared to Western populations. The excessive changes that have occurred in CRC incidence in recent times in Saudi Arabia suggest environmental factors, including obesity as important aetiological factors for the noted change (Uddin et al., 2009). Age-standardised death rate from colon and rectum cancers in Saudi Arabia according to WHO statistics for 2004 was 8.

3 per 100,000 population [Centre for Arab Genomic Studies (CAGS), UAE, http://www.cags.org.ae/gme2cancersencolon.pdf]. Also, according to CAGS, the incidence of colon cancer among Arab populations is lower compared to other world populations. Yet in several Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia, CRC incidence in people under 40 years of age has been found to be relatively high. Considering that colorectal cancer tops the list of causes of cancer-related death among Saudi population, it was deemed important to conduct research on CRC.

Hence, this project chose to study the chemotherapeutic aspects of CRC, in particular the activity of platinum-based compounds as cytotoxic agents for treatment of CRC. Future work Platinum compounds are the usual first option against colorectal cancer. Oxaliplatin, a diaminocyclohexane-containing platinum analogue, shows significant cytotoxic effect in a wide range of cell lines. Clinical studies have demonstrated the efficacy of oxaliplatin monotherapy in several cancers, including colon cancer (Cvitkovic and Bekradda, 1999).

Some desirable factors that are specific to oxaliplatin are its high potency even in sensitive cell lines (Woynarowski et al., 2000), and the absence of resistance due to mismatch repair deficiency (Sergent et al., 2002). Oxaliplatin activity and mechanisms of action and resistance are quite different from those of other platinum-containing compounds such as cisplatin. Peripheral neuropathy is the main side effect of oxaliplatin treatment. Satraplatin