A medical research team has completed animal testing on a drug that fights an aggressive type of brain tumor and found that the average life expectancy of mice doubled after they were treated, the leader of the research team said yesterday.
Harn Horng-jyh (韓鴻志), a professor at China Medical University, said his team is working with a biotechnology company to develop a drug against Glioblastoma multiforme, which is an aggressive type of malignant primary brain tumor.
The treatment of this kind of tumor usually involves surgery, radiotherapy and chemotherapy, but the drug aims to provide an alternative, Harn said.
Lin Shinn-zong (林欣榮), chairman of the Taiwan Neurosurgical Society, said this type of tumor is fast growing and has a high recurrence rate.
It can grow to 16 times its size in just one month and the life expectancy of patients, who are often not diagnosed until the late stages, is 12 to 18 months on average, he added.
Harn said a steady release of the drug into the tumors inhibited their growth in mice.
About 35 percent of the mice in the test lived for up to 250 days after one treatment and no side effects were seen during the experiment, Harn said.
The main ingredient of the drug is z-butylidenephthalide, a natural compound that can be extracted from the Chinese medicinal herb Angelica sinensis, or Dong quai.
There are about 400 new brain tumor cases every year in Taiwan, 60 percent of which are malignant, Lin said.
The five-year survival rate of patients with malignant brain tumors is only 3.4 percent, he said.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
Prosecutors today declined to say who was questioned regarding alleged forgery on petitions to recall Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) legislators, after Chinese-language media earlier reported that members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Youth League were brought in for questioning. The Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau confirmed that two people had been questioned, but did not disclose any further information about the ongoing investigation. KMT Youth League members Lee Hsiao-liang (李孝亮) and Liu Szu-yin (劉思吟) — who are leading the effort to recall DPP caucus chief executive Rosalia Wu (吳思瑤) and Legislator Wu Pei-yi (吳沛憶) — both posted on Facebook saying: “I
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