On March 6, 2024, The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published its final draft Guidance that DOES NOT recommend Enhertu for the treatment of advanced breast cancer in the British National Health Service (NHS). Their decision was based not on the drug’s efficacy but on its cost-effectiveness. In short, the Advisory Body judged that it was too expensive to be funded from the stretched resources of the British NHS.
The treatment was for a specific type of breast cancer (HER2-low) which can be tested for by advanced laboratory immunological methods. The NICE decision is clearly a big disappointment particularly for British patients with this type of breast cancer.
This post highlights that sophisticated as the treatment is, its origin is in the natural world and the tree, Camptotheca acuminata, a plant native to Tibet and China where it is known as the Happy Tree. Today, the tree is also called the Tree of life and the Cancer Tree.
The story begins in the 1950s when the US made a major push in its ‘war’ against cancer by systematically screening thousands of plants sourced worldwide for anticancer agents. In earlier posts we commented on the major drug paclitaxel (Taxol) which was identified in the yew tree. Another success in the screening was the identification of camptothecin in the leaves, stems, bark and seeds of Camptotheca acuminata, a plant used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM).
Enhertu, a branded product contains trastuzumab deruxtecan, a drug made u of two components, (i) an antibody (trastuzumab) and (ii) a cytotoxic agent (deruxtecan) which is a derivative of camptothecin. Another successful anticancer derivative of the latter is the widely used irinotecan.
Agents like Enhertu are known in the anticancer technical literature as armed targeted antibodies because the antibody targets the cancer cell to deliver its toxic payload (deruxtecan) precisely thereby sparing the healthy cells surrounding the tumour.
Previous posts: 1. The Yew Tree – Source of the anticancer drug paclitaxel (Taxol) Part 1 2. Health Alert – Poisoned by Yew Trees
#Taxusbaccata#YewTree #Taxol #AnticancerDrugs #Paclitaxel #Taxine #AgathaChristie #APocketfulOfRye #MedicineTrees #MedicinalHerbs #MedicinalPlants #HerbalMedicine #PlantMedicines #FolkloreRemedies #TakingLeadFromNature #PlantPoisons #RiskBenefitOfWarnings # Camptotheca acuminata, a plant native to Tibet and China where it is known as the #HappyTree #TreeOfLife #CancerTree #BreastCancer #TargetedTherapy #ArmedAntibody #Her2-low #TrastuzumabDeruxtecan #Irinotecan #Camptotechin #TraditionalChineseMedicine #TCM
Photo Credit – https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=41698807
Medicine Trees 
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