Groundbreaking Research on Colorectal Cancer Presented at BIO Asia Taiwan

Day 2 at #BIOAsiaTaiwan2022! Stage of National Health Research Institutes (NHRI)’s booth! Thank you Dr. Jaw-Yuan Wang, Dean of Pingtung Hospital for sharing his knowledge with us. Dr. Wang is the colorectal cancer expert in the Taiwan.

In 2017, scientists team led by Dr. Wang completed a prospective, randomized, double-blind, controlled trial to evaluate the efficacy of Low Molecular Weight Fucoidan (Oligo Fucoidan) as a supplemental therapy to chemotarget agents in patients with metastatic colorectal cancer (mCRC). Sixty eligible patients with mCRC were included. Taiwan oligo fucoidan® effectively enhanced the disease control rate (DCR) of mCRC patients. Specifically, at a median follow-up period of 11.5 months, the DCR, defined as the sum of the complete response (CR), partial response (PR) and stable disease (SD) rates, was significantly statistical higher (by 23.6%) in the study group than in the control group (i.e., 92.8% vs 69.2%; p = 0.026).

In 2021, the team completed an advanced research on how Low Molecular Weight Fucoidan works in enhancing the anti-cancer effects of fluoropyrimidine-based chemotherapy. In this study. we demonstrated that LMWF could enhance the anti-cancer efficacy of 5-FU through its effects on tumor cell viability and migration in both colon cancer cell types of HCT116 (KRAS-mutated type) and Caco-2 (KRAS wild-type). However, the associated signaling pathways are different. In HCT116 cells, LMWF enhances the suppressive efficacy of 5- FU through the induction of cell cycle arrest and JNK-mediated apoptosis. In Caco-2 cells, LMWF enhances the suppressive efficacy of 5-FU through the c-MET/KRAS/ERK and c- MET/PI3K/AKT signaling pathways. In both HCT116 and Caco-2 cells, LMWF enhances the suppressive effects of 5-FU on tumor cell migration through treatment through the c- MET/MMP-2 signaling pathway.