Cardiospermum inhibits Cyclophosphamide Induced Immunosuppression and Oxidative Stress

Conventional cancer treatments have many modalities, all directed at killing tumor cells or preventing their proliferation. The most common approach is chemotherapy, which is not selective toward tumor cells, but damaging to normal cells too. Immunosuppression is a major drawback of chemotherapy (Hersh and Freiriech, 1968). Cyclophosphamide (CTX) is a cytotoxic alkylating drug with a high therapeutic index and broad spectrum of activity against a variety of cancers. CTX is one of the most widely used drugs for the treatment of chronic and acute leukemias, multiple myeloma, lymphomas, and rheumatic arthritis (Pass et al, 2005). However, use of CTX is often restricted because of its wide adverse side effects and toxicity that includes nausea, vomiting, alopaecia, mucosal ulceration, pulmonary fibrosis, cardiac, hemopoetic suppression, nephrotoxicity, urotoxicity, cardiotoxicity and hepatic toxicity (Morandi et al., 2005; Papaldo et al., 2005; Schwartz et al., 2005; Amudha et al., 2007). Drugs that could reduce these side effects, as well as stimulate immunity, will be of great help in improving cancer treatment strategies.