Ginger Compound Derivative Shrinks Lung Tumors in Mice, Vietnamese Study Finds

Researchers at Vietnam's Institute of Chemistry, part of the Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology, led by Dr. Lu Van Chinh, say zerumbone — a compound abundant in ginger essential oil — shows potential to help treat cancer and appears safe for the body, unlike chemotherapy and oral cancer drugs that can significantly affect liver and kidney function and weaken the immune system.

Ginger oil can contain zerumbone at up to 56.43% of its content; the team isolated it at 97% purity with an 80% recovery rate. Comparing zerumbone with the chemotherapy drug cisplatin, they measured its IC50 — the concentration needed to kill half the cancer cells in a lab dish — at 3.15 micrograms per millilitre, versus 7.08 for cisplatin, and found zerumbone was also far less toxic: its own lethal dose in animal tests (LD50) was 1,840 milligrams per kilogram of body weight, compared with a figure of 8.5 milligrams per kilogram cited for cisplatin.

Because zerumbone alone has only modest anticancer activity, the researchers built derivatives designed to bind more strongly to cancer-linked proteins. One, named Zethiazole, combines zerumbone with a compound called 2-mercaptobenzothiazole; the project's review council, chaired by Professor Tran Van Sung, said this was the first time such a derivative had been synthesized and its antitumor activity tested. The team also produced 17 other new zerumbone derivatives that were toxic to multiple cancer cell lines.

In mice, Zethiazole doses of 50, 100 and 200 milligrams per kilogram per day reduced lung tumor weight by 2.74%, 7.58% and 17.44% respectively, compared with untreated animals. It also cut the growth of lung, liver and uterine cancer cells by half at concentrations of just 0.98, 1.45 and 1.03 micrograms per millilitre respectively. Blood tests showed the compound did not affect the mice's kidney, liver or blood biochemistry, and an oral dose of 5,000 milligrams per kilogram was found non-toxic.

Dr. Dinh Thi Lam, deputy director of Dong Da General Hospital in Hanoi, said the findings support further research into the medicinal use of this ginger compound in cancer treatment.