Chinese researchers have teamed up with United States scientists to work on a new cancer treatment using traditional Chinese medicine to inhibit the growth of tumors.

The discovery made by East China Normal University and Texas A&M University has been published in the latest edition of Cancer Research, an international academic journal.

The research team led by Liu Mingyao, a professor with ECNU's institute of biomedical sciences, discovered that gambogic acid, a traditional Chinese medicine, could suppress vascular growth factors.

Without nutrients carried by micro-vessels, tumors stop growing and gradually die off.

Researchers used gambogic acid medicine to treat one of two groups of experimental mice with tumors.

Tumors in mice that had been given the medicine went into a dormant state.

Tumors in the mice that did not have the medicine grew.

Yi Zhengfang, an ECNU researcher and Liu's student, said the discovery was different from existing cancer treatments as it "starved" cancers by cutting off the growth transportation path.

The existing three methods of treatment - surgery, chemotherapy and radiotherapy - targeted the cancer cells themselves and had side effects, Yi said.

"What we discovered is regarded as a fourth treatment for cancer," he said.

The research team has applied for a patent on their discovery and is continuing their work, seeking new cancer growth inhibiting factors, according to Yi.

(Shanghai Daily March 26, 2008)