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Role of vitamin E and vitamin E derivatives in Cancer treatment and in offsetting toxicity by Chemotherapy

Raghu Pandurangi

 Recent epidemiological studies reveal that 35 % of cancer initiation may be related to food, lack of nutrition and sedate lifestyle. However, it is hard to connect directly which ingredient of which food and how long it takes to develop cancer. Although Vitamins including Vitamin E have several favourable health related properties, translating them to therapeutic dose using food matrix is hard which necessitates new formulation, supplements and delivery through a novel drug releasing technology. Chemotherapy, despite widely used for treatment of cancer is nonspecific resulting in the collateral damage to normal cells. Vitamin E is an antioxidant which can help repair the DNA damage to normal cells induced by chemotherapy. In order to deliver the optimum dose, Vitamin E was esterified with pegylation to make it water soluble and administered orally. The esterase enzyme available in the body hydrolyses the ester bond to release Vitamin E to reach the therapeutic level. On the other hand, the same Vitamin E was derivatized using a dipeptide linker which is cleaved by tumour specific enzyme which is overexpressed by cancer cells. The technology is often referred to as “A Priori Activation of Apoptosis Pathways of Tumour” AAAPT. Cancer cells are known for desensitizing themselves to intervention. AAAPT identified several dysregulated pathways to sensitize those cells which do not respond to chemotherapy. Targeted tumour sensitizing technology enables to expand the therapeutic index of current FDA approved chemotherapy by lowering the therapeutic dose without reducing efficacy. Optimization of drug design using Vitamin E resulted in reducing cardiotoxicity of the current chemotherapy drugs