A nutrient mixture suppresses hepatic metastasis in athymic nude mice injected with murine B16FO melanoma cells.

Highly metastatic melanoma is resistant to existing therapies. A unique micronutrient mixture (NM) containing ascorbic acid, amino acids, green tea extract has been shown to exhibit anticancer activity in vivo and in vitro in a number of cancer cell lines including human and murine melanoma cells lines. In this study we examined the effect of dietary NM supplementation on hepatic metastasis of intrasplenic injection of B16FO melanoma cells in athymic nude mice. Athymic nude mice (n = 10), 10-12 weeks of age, received 10(6) B16FO melanoma cells by injection into the spleen and divided into two groups. The Control group of mice received Purina mouse chow and the NM group received the regular diet supplemented with NM 0.5%. After two weeks, animals were sacrificed and spleens, livers, kidneys and lungs were excised from all animals, examined, weighed and processed for histology. The Control mice developed large black spleens and livers indicating growth in the spleen and metastasis to the liver. However, the mice supplemented with NM not only showed less tumor growth in the spleen as the Control mice, but also drastically reduced metastasis to the liver. In all groups, no metastasis to the kidneys and lungs was evident. In conclusion, these results suggest that NM has potential in suppression of tumor metastasis.