Cytotoxic studies of anti-neoplastic drugs on human lymphocytes--in vitro studies.

All the anti-cancer drugs proved to be highly cytotoxic agents to normal cells like lymphocyte cells used in our study which do not come under rapidly dividing cells like bone marrow cells, fetal cells, germ cells, hair follicle cells, intestinal cells, etc. but will proliferate when maintained in growth media with proliferation agents. In this investigation, we determined the effect of anti-cancer drugs on lymphocyte cultures from peripheral blood of healthy non-smoking donors under in vitro conditions by employing MTT assay. All the experiments were carried out with seven anti-cancer drugs; Carboplatin, Avastin, Vinorelbine, Tamoxifen Citrate, Methotrexate, Gemcitabine and Paclitaxel which are broad-spectrum cancer drugs and being used in six different types of chemotherapy in cancers. We have documented the results that were evaluated by statistical analysis. The MTT assay is now widely adopted by researchers and industry, as it is a rapid spectrophotometric method for determining cell viability in cell lines and in vitro. The initial or dose-finding studies determine the drug toxicity relative to dose and subsequent studies define the spectrum of activity of the drug. And moreover, no anti-neoplastic drug is devoid of side effects. Hence, this investigation determines the lethal concentrations and thereby the dosages at which individual anti-neoplastic drugs and also combinations can bring about certain degree of cytotoxicity in human lymphocytes which with comparative study on cancer cell lines would be useful in defining drug dosages.