4 days ago I put up the PayPal link, I wrote an explanation as to why I felt that we had to ask for help and I contacted someone who I have the utmost respect for and to whom I thought might be able to get the word out.
Well, my goodness, I never thought for one moment that this plea would, within hours, turn into a sort of mini ScottAid. The support from Dr. P Z Myers and his readers at http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/ has been overwhelming. Not only have we received donations but also many emails of comfort and support from around the world. Most of the donations were for $5 or $10, several were substantially larger, and it just goes to show how every little bit really does help. A total of just under $4000 has been donated!! David, Derry, Scott and I are gobsmacked and have absolutely no idea how to say thank you and let you SEE just how amazed and grateful we are. I wish I could line up everyone who chipped in or sent us a message and give you all a big cuddle.
Like I said in my previous post, we have become bogged down in medical debt. For a while we managed to stay afloat but there comes a point where you have used up all your rainy-day money and all of your families too! These donations have relieved a great deal of stress and will go a long way in helping us keep the wolf from the door.
Obviously our main concern here is Scott’s health and wellbeing. He has suffered so much in the last few years, first the dog-attack, then cancer and the side effects, a stroke, shingles, the death of his Dad and Granddad, fungal pneumonia and more recently cerebral edema. Thankfully he has a twisted sense of humor and can see a funny side to all of it – well sometimes at least – other days he just feels doomed. Oh hell, I’m waffling on again and can’t quite remember where I was going with this. I think what I’m trying to say is that the bottom line is Scott being well, and Derry too obviously, and David, and me! Health is everything. Yet, believe me it sucks when your child is seriously ill AND the debt collectors won’t stop bloody calling. No-one can wave a magic wand and guarantee a cure, but what people have done is simply shown their humanity and said, “Sure, I’ll give you a helping hand”. I just hadn’t expected so many hands!
Thank you PZ and all at Pharyngula.

Also thank you to Shel and to Kristy. You both kind of got swamped by the invasion but we saw your names in there and are very grateful to you for digging deep to help our family. Thank you.

A little Scott news … he is still fighting this cold and feeling miserable. I am in the same boat, so we are sharing my bed at night (we have been quarantined) where we cough and sneeze and blow our little noses on the bed sheets and wait for morning to come. His anc on Thursday was a pathetic 763 (neutropenic) so how he has avoided getting a high temperature is beyond me. I just hope that his body can keep fighting this without the need for a hospital stay. On Thursday, if his anc is okay, he is due for vincristine, methotrexate, 6mp and prednisone so next week will be horrible too.

Lastly, we were all sprawled out on the couch yesterday watching some drivel on the TV when an advert for Cialis came on. So, as I do in these situations, I start chattering away very loudly about the first thing that comes into my head, in this instance I went with how much I was missing tomato ketchup crisps (chips) when all of a sudden Scott, whilst still watching the Cialis Ad and with a dead serious expression on his face, pipes up with, “I have that problem too, I need Cialis”. Derry cracks up laughing and David and I just look at each other and share an, “oh shit” moment. A multitude of thoughts are running around my head, he is going through puberty after all, is something ‘wrong’? Would he even know if something down there isn’t working right? Has he read something about chemotherapy and late effects? Dammit he’s too young to have a willy problem!! So, after a moment, I turn and ask him what makes him think he needs Cialis. His reply, “I haven’t had a normal poop in months Mum, I’m constipated today, tomorrow I’ll probably have the runs. Immodium is useless so maybe Dr Tebbi will give me Cialis for my rectal dysfunction?” He was dead serious, and I am still laughing.

Oh and one more lastly, congratulations to Derry for being so awesome and being on the winning ice hockey team this year. He played well and made an amazing save. This dude was charging down the ice determined to score, Derry was struggling to catch him so decided to fly instead. He shot down the ice, splattered into the dude; hit the puck away and both of them ended up inside the goalie net. He’s all bruised up but happy as a lark. Here's a blurry picture of him going to colletc his medal:

Goodnight, sleep tight and thanks for coming by. x

Just a quick, late update tonight for those of you across the pond. Derry's team managed to win the Final tonight, by a score of 4-2. He was quite happy, as his knee didn't betray him this evening. Also happy as Anthony, who lives a couple doors down, plays on the other team.

Scott continues to have coughing fits. He is most certainly fighting the bug that has been going round here. Knock on wood - no fever to this point. As you all know, hitting the 100.5 mark results in a 48-hour minimum stay at the Hotel Tebbi (otherwise known as St. Joe's). Obviously our biggest fear is the chest congestion taking deep hold and leading us to another bout of pneumonia.

We want no complications (no one does). The danger of even minor issues reared its head yesterday with another local child. A young girl that lives in our area has been battling neuroblastoma. Jessica was responding to treatment, but needed platelets 8 days ago. Somehow the platets she received were infected, and she reacted badly. Sadly, she passed away yesterday. After all the battles she had faced, such a problem took her away.

Folks wonder why we worry endlessly about every little blood count anomaly, additional drug or procedure. There are none which come with zero risks. Everything seems a risk to these kids. It seems too many are paying the highest price.

Scott and I didnt make it to the game this morning (which is still in play) because he is still 'down with the sickness' (come on, get up, get down with it). Neither of us have had much sleep the last few nights and dragging him out of his nest at 7am this morning to go and sit on the bench at the ice sports forum didnt seem like a wise idea. He is awake now and pleasantly buzzing from his cold and flu medicines and looking forward to getting his make over later this morning.

Anyhow, the reason for my post is that Derry's team are already leading 6-nil, and its still only the first period!!! It looks like they are gonna go through to the final tonight! Bring. It. On!

PS. Damn me and my big mouth. Derry got pummeled and took a bad fall in the 3rd period by his best friend from high school (who plays on the opposing team) and has busted his knee. His team won the semi 8-1 but I'm not sure Derry will be able to play now. He's laying down with an ice pack and knocking back the ibuprofen.

As you may have noticed we have added a new gizmo to the blog. I know you are only here because you care about Scott and his welfare and I know that you would all help if you could. I also know that many of you have already been kind (given us big checks!) in helping us through these tough times. There is also the harsh reality that not only are we skint, but you are too. However the elephant is in the room, please feel free to ignore it. Should you wish to help, it is there, ready and waiting.
Any money we receive will be put towards medical bills and prescriptions. We have good insurance but a high deductable ($4000) AND co-pay ($2000). And whilst Scott may be approaching the end of treatment we will still have off-treatment bills of $6000 in the coming year for such things as breathing treatments, monthy labs and hopefully, the removal of his port. As Scott was diagnosed just prior to the end of the finanical health year then we are responsible for 4 full years of payments. Incidentals (gas/petrol/non presciption drugs such as pro-biotics, immodium and benadryl/treats/bribes at hospital/craving weeks!! etc) easily run to $1500 a year. I wanted to lay this out here so you dont think I'm pulling any old exaggerated number out of my head. If all goes well (no relapse) then this leukemia will have cost in excess of $30,000.
We had hoped , and had promised ourselves, that we would never have to do this. Thank you and sorry for such blatant squirming and begging.

Scott has been fighting a cold and for the last few days he’s been lying around on the sofa like a little white, coughing, snot oozing, sweaty, maggoty type thing.
So, I was pleasantly surprised to see his anc hadn’t bottomed out. It wasn’t great and he was only thirteen over the required magic number of 750, but at least it wasn’t zero. So he got checked over to make sure he didn’t have ebola, pneumonia or the Black Death and was given the go ahead to have his breathing treatment and chemo. Whilst his counts weren’t great it was nice to see a small rise in platelets and hemoglobin. He also had 46% monocytes which is off the charts – but good. In a healthy individual monocytes are typically between 0 and 10%, but are very often higher in someone receiving chemo and steroids. It means the bone marrow is recovering – and working. Usually within a few days of seeing a high number of moncytes the anc (absolute neutrophil count) will recover.
Hopefully he will shake off his sniffles in the next day or so because I have convinced him to come to the Spa with my friend, Sara and I on Saturday. He desperately needs his hair tidied up but since losing it all to chemo he has become rather phobic of hairdressers. His hair is still very dry, thin and unruly due to the chemo and he looks like he’s been dragged through a hedge backwards. Anyway I told him it was either a shearing at Sports Clips or a luxury cut and style at the Spa. After a long discussion on where the prettiest hair ‘cutters’ worked, he picked the Spa. He also managed to negotiate a trip to Waffle House on the way back. GROSS!
Also on Saturday (at 8am!!!! Ugg) we have to be at the Ice Sports Forum for the Fall Hockey League semi-finals. Derry’s team made it through. Cool huh?! Not only that but they went through in 1st place. If his team wins they will play again at 7pm in the final. I bet if I give him a handful of Scott’s steroids his muscles and hormones will go into overdrive and he’ll fly across the ice like Gretzky on speed. Such a cunning plan.

That’s it for now, I feel like I have some sort of fungus growing in my throat and its doing my head in. Gonna go lie down.

Our pretty kitty is growing up->

Am I childish or are these hacked road signs really, really funny?

Replies to all my lovely messages:
Yes Mum it sucks looking at old photos and I hardly ever do. Derry has barely changed since he was a baby but Scott has taken a beating from this dreadful disease. Maybe this summer will be kind to us and Scott will get his groove back. He still dreams of being an FBI profiler (or if that doesn’t work out, a stripper, and no, I am not making that up!!!!!), so he has about six years to get fit, get educated and put this nonsense behind him.
Sherry, like I said above I hardly ever look at old photos. How you find the strength to do so amazes me. But everything you do amazes me. Scott is bedazzled by you too, especially since he learned you have a golf cart. :)
Please support Sherry’s wonderful charity if you can …
http://www.givinghopethroughfaith.org/
or buy her book. For those in the UK, I will gladly post it.
Sandie my sunshine, my bad influence, unless you have deteriorated dramatically in the last few years then I think the “old crone in the mirror” is simply a figment designed to make me feel less old and saggy. But that’s okay, you may continue feeding my schadenfraude troll – he likes it! And as for you being the kind of girl my folks warned me about – LOL – yup you’re probably right. If it werent for you and your type I'd be a non-smoking univeristy professor by now. And just for the record, if I do end up doing a “grizzly man” in years to come (after our date at the dumpster); my folks can come looking to YOU for answers! Let me know when you get Rock Band 2 on the PS3 – I’ll whoop your arse on Aqualung – yes I really can do it, 94% on expert!!! I rock.
Carolyn, oh dear … I am so paranoid as to who is looking into our fish bowl and when you say "so many people come here on Thursdays for updates" it gives me the heebie-jeebies. It is hard writing this blog, trying to take into consideration who is reading and tip-toeing around my words so as not to offend anyone. I try to keep this journal fairly limited to Scott and his trials and tribulations but needless to say, so much other ‘stuff’ gets thrown into the mix too – most often written when I am at the depths of despair or half asleep. And for us to be called 'inspirational' kind of makes me chuckle. There are, sadly, a great many blogs and carepages out there devoted to sick children, and my goodness, 99% of those families seem to handle it all WAY better than we do. We're either running around like headless chickens in a permanent state of OMGishness or mute and shocked, still stunned after 2 long years. Anyhow, when push comes to shove, I'd sure rather have people that come here and give a damn than be all alone and talking to myself.
Angel Laura, you think I’m funny?? Wow, I’ve been called a lot of things in my life (stubborn and opinionated most often) but funny isn’t usually among them. I know I am fiercely sarcastic (not necessarily funny) and have a very dry sense of humor. I doubt either come across when I write updates as, like I said to Carolyn, I’m either in a foul mood or half asleep. I keep thinking about starting another blog and REALLY letting rip (oooh I get so darn mad at the world, today I’m mad at the lady who gave birth to 8 children a few days ago, Ted Haggard and the UK Prime Minister) yet I am not sure I’m tough enough to handle the death threats that would go with the territory. And Angel Laura, you are absolutely not a 'small part of our lives', you are one of the best parts of our lives and its high time I told you that more often. Damn, thats a bit sappy isnt it. :)
NANA!!! I lured you out. Yay for me and yay for you for figuring out how to reply. Please do so more often as I would love to get your advice and hear your astute observations. I hope that you are feeling good, your leg is healing, and after seeing the news, I hope that you are staying warm. Oh and please consider adopting Sandie. You have so many grandchildren as it is so surely another one – and a witty and uber- brainy Italian at that – won’t be a problem. She even makes homemade Christmas cards!!
Aunty Dawn, isn’t it time you had a blog or even set up a Taylor group blog?? You do those lovely corny Christmas newsletters so well and since the family has spread (ran away) to every corner of the globe it might be something to do on a cold and rainy English evening?! As for our gossip, well I think David came close to putting me on the first flight back to Gatwick on Superbowl Sunday after my rant against American football. I’m thinking of getting ‘When In Rome …” tattooed to my forehead but even then I just know I wont be able to stop mouthing off. But you gotta admit, it sure does look like rugby for pansies.
Mrs. Tinsley, thank you for your reply and for checking in on Scott. We did intend coming to the FLVS event on Saturday. I had planned on taking Scott for a much-needed haircut and then coming to Barnes and Noble to meet with you and the other teachers. However, and without getting into too many gory details, his unreliable tummy let rip and leaving the house was no longer an option. Scott’s chemo side-effects just keeping get worse and worse. I am trying to stay positive about them all disappearing into thin air once he finishes treatment but I am sadly learning of many children who are long off-treatment and still suffering from these effects.

I'll leave you with this cool fossil that I was just reading about (not enough pictures though), an early whale with legs and a baby about to be born...
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0004366

Thursday came again and so did another vial of chemo. Scott’s counts were not so great with the hemoglobin and platelets falling from last week. It seems that as time ticks by his anc doesn’t rise as it used to following steroids. I was told that this is probably due to the bone marrow being tired and sluggish after taking a beating for two straight years. A good response to prednisone (the steroid used for most t-cell patients) is an early indicator as to whether treatment will be successful or not. Well, hopefully now that we are nearing the end this is not such an issue anymore. Only time will tell I suppose.

Sadly clinic was very busy this afternoon. Thursday afternoons are usually very quiet, sometimes Scott is the only patient, but not today. There were no familiar faces, so Im guessing these kids were newly diagnosed. Certainly one kid was, I could tell by the look of horror on his parents faces. Another child was being admitted to the 8th floor. This is where Scott spent the night prior to his diagnosis being confirmed by a bone marrow autopsy. The nurses called it a “dirty” floor as it is where children with contagious diseases are treated. Obviously this is not the place for a child with cancer and a low immune system. I guess the rest of the hospital must have been full. It seems that pediatric cancer is everywhere and is spiraling. Maybe it is only my awareness, or my paranoia.

Thanks for checking in and thank you to all of you who take the time to leave a little feedback. I hate having to keep this blog, obviously because of its content, but also because I feel like you're all in my space. I am not a social creature by any stretch of the imagination (unlike David who runs around, tail-a-wagging and loves everyone) so spewing forth, into cyber space, little tit bits of our lives makes me most uneasy. Obviously all the really good gossip, all the smut, the tears and the arguments I never mention, and anything mildy amusing or interesting which does become chronicled for all eternity is wildy exaggerated - but that goes without saying Im sure. LOL. But anyway, enough waffle. As I was saying ... thank you for checking in and for leaving messages. Without the messages it would be a lonely place and I certainly would have stopped running my mouth off long, long ago. Ahahhaha, so now you know how to shut me up, once and for all.

My mum keeps reminding me that my almost 90 year old Nana reads this blog every Sunday. I know this is her way of saying, "you'd better damn well stop with all that bloody swearing young lady, your Nana's listening". Mind you, Nana is Navy through and through and could probably pwn me in a swearing contest any day!! Scott's teachers have started keeping up-to-date with the blog too, which makes me sweat a bit and double check my spelling and grammar. Now I see that my curly haired and freckled little cousin is also following Scott's story and all I can think about is spinning on the waltzers with him in Helensburgh in the mid-eighties singing 'Young at Heart' and looking mighty cool. Damn I miss the eighties, and feeling completely invincible. Come to think of it I was invincible, and dazzlingly spectacular, especially in my ra-ra skirt and stripey legwarmers. I am almost 40 now, with wrinkles and folds and creaks. Shit.

Gawd, I do go on dont I? I shall zip the cake hole now and get to bed. Oh and I want to see lots of messages in the morning, especially from YOU, my dear Nana. :)

5 years ago we were galloping around Scotland, celebrating David's birthday (which is tomorrow), trying to keep him from freezing to death whilst at the same time attempting to toughen him up (he hated my "air-conditioning system" which led to him waking up with snow on his face!), car-skating down the Lecht in a blizzard and definately NOT thinking about bone marrow and platelets.

Happy Birthday my bonny lad, my Sunshine!

Two Years

I’ve not been posting many of the entries here on the blog lately. Stephanie has been handling the updates. No specific reason why, it just happens that way I guess. But here we find ourselves two years since we entered this nightmare. It is staggering to think back at the things that have happened with Scott.

There is nothing glamorous about all he has been through. No revelations we’ve experienced because of it. Mostly, we’ve seen horrors which are unimaginable. It is not a life experience anyone wants. We have no choice; it is just what happened to Scott and our family. You just deal in whatever manner you can muster.

Having a child with cancer is exhaustive mentally, physically, emotionally and financially. It has changed us all in the last two years. I can’t explain all of the changes, and likely don’t even realize most of them. Things are just different.

It seems most any conversation we have with anyone contains questions about how Scott is doing. One can almost guarantee some level of surprise or shock from the other party when you try to explain “yes, he’s still on chemo”, and the basics of a treatment protocol. At diagnosis, it was shocking and hard for us to even comprehend. It still is that way, but the explanations get tiring simply because all your energy is drained.

If all goes well and Scott has no more delays, his protocol will end in about 14 weeks from now. And that may be the scariest mark in the entire ordeal. Chemo is horrible. The side effects are horrible. But it is chemo which has been the security blanket. Scott had blasts at diagnosis. Chemo killed them. Chemo administered relentlessly pounds away at any blasts which may be trying to hang out in the nooks and crannies of the body. At this point, chemo is the security blanket – you know it kills the bad guy. I suppose a good analogy would be to have walked in a war-torn village in Iraq for a couple of years with full body armor, then one day waking up and having someone tell you “no more body armor”.

Don’t get me wrong – I want Scott’s treatment done as much as he and Stephanie do. I’m just trying to explain the impact all this has on the psyche. It is easy for folks who have never had a child endure this to say all the upbeat motivational things. The fact is - this will stay with us forever. Scott has no choice. He’ll always have regular medical tests others folks can ignore until their 40’s. He’ll never be able to ditch the memories of his treatment. For that I get as angry as humanly possible.

I don’t mean to be a downer, but once this nightmare enters your life, it doesn’t just walk away. It sets up shop for good and grinds on you.

Like I said, we’re two years on now. It’s a marker of sorts, but mostly just a marker in time.

I’m beginning to feel like the little boy who cried wolf. But as long as the wolf doesn’t ever rear its ugly head again then that’s alright with me.
It’s been a nerve-wracking week. Unclassified cells in the peripheral blood can signal relapse and having 8% of cells be unrecognizable certainly gives rise to the heebie-jeebies! Not only did we have crappy blood to worry about, but Scott has been showing no interest in food these last few days and that was the first sign when he was originally diagnosed. He’s also stopped playing on his PS3 and if that’s not spooky then I don’t know what is.
Thankfully – and that’s a huge understatement – his counts today showed no sign of anything sinister. His platelets took a nose-dive, which explains the splattering of bruises he currently has, but the white cells and hemoglobin looked healthy and his anc had recovered. I was also pleased to see the lymphocytes dip. Too many lymphs can also be a red flag. And best of all, not a single, measly unclassified or atypical lymph.
Damn Im so chuffed.
So, today marks 4 and also happens to be 2 years since we first took him to the doctor as he had stopped eating. Just as we were heading out of the door to get to the appointment I noticed the nodes in his neck were swollen, I know this is generally harmless, yet I knew that in Scott’s case it wasn’t. I have never wrote about his diagnosis – its kind of freaky – yet somehow Scott knew, the cats definitely knew, and on seeing those nodes I was also getting a bad, sinking feeling, that it was cancer.
The doctor didn’t seem concerned at all and put it all down to a bug. Two days later Scott threw up and suffered a petechial hemorrhage in his face. An hour later the doctor at a walk-in clinic told me, with tears in her eyes, that she was 99% certain it was leukemia.
However, tonight we party with a big, fat Publix cake and continue with out countdown.
YAY.

Remember the golden rule squirt

One Tiger to a Hill.

I don't want Thursday to come this week at all. I just want to scoop up little Scott and carry him off to a place, far far away. Away from the noise, the chaos and the doctors.

Sadly though, I am a coward, Thursday will come and we will go to clinic.

Today Scott and I watched the inauguration of President Obama. I'm not much into pomp and ceremony, and I have been called a "commie" more times than I can remember, but today was an incredible day - and hell, I'm not even American! Incredible to see the back of Bush (we did a little water boarding in his honour before breakfast - LOL) and even more so, to have a new President who might offer America and the World some common sense at last.

Before I go, a little Derry news. He come home today and told me that he had picked his electives for next year ... culinary and French!!!! I was, and still am, gobsmacked. I have been pushing for him to take French for a while now, a second language is vital and French is beautiful to speak, and my goodness, I think he was listening! As for culinary, when I asked why he has never shown an ounce of interest in the kitchen before he replied, "its because you dont cook, you just open cans". Well dang, that's me told! Culinary and French and a European passport ... wow ... that's a lot of doors I hear opening. Mind you, he did insist that he only took these electives as 'sniper training' wasnt on the list of options.

******* *** I hate ****** bloodwork and I ******* hate cancer

Too miserable to write much. Scott's counts were bloody awful today and he had 8% unclassified and other spookies.
We asked for repeat labs - which became a battle of wills - but in the end our request was granted. Second labs showed 2% unclassified but other abnormal cells, a lower hemoglobin and lower anc.
We went with the first anc which allowed Scott to have his methotrexate. The second anc would have meant a hold.
We now have a week of watching Scott closely and of trying not to freak out.






















At least with the undead all you need is a grenade launcher and a decent head shot.

Why must dudes do this?

Which reminds me,

http://windinyourvagina.blogspot.com/

incredible blog but not for the faint of heart! Be warned mother.

A Golden Globe for Heath.

I'm not much into the telly or films, the vast majority is absolute tosh and embarrassing to the human intellect, however kudos to the late Heath Ledger. I have never watched any movie 3 times, let alone from start to finish, but I just cant seem to get enough of his Joker. The last time we watched it Scott and I were close to tears knowing we would never see him play this role again and just sad that tragedy crept up and stole him, way too soon.

Its been a peaceful and incredibly boring weekend, just the way we like it! So, not much to report on really. Scott is feeling crummy but with the help of his friends Pepito Bismol and Ben A. Dryl he has crawled a little closer to the finish line. Derry had hockey yesterday and today and has turned into a puck thug, but anyway, he's loving it and the team are on a winning streak.

Heres a few pictures of the mighty aqualungmyfriend (who is such a GOOD CAT) and the boys ...

(oh and sometimes, just for fun, he cackles and disappears into thin air - weird!)

Well it’s been another rough week for little Scotty boy. I’m sure you’re sick of reading about his woes and I’m sure sick of writing about it, so I won’t detail all those weird and wonderful side effects anymore. He got through it, that’s the main thing.
Today was clinic … yeah big surprise huh.. and his blood work looked okay so he got another load of chemo. The anc and hemoglobin were a bit low considering where they were at last week but its getting to that point where nothing surprises me anymore.
I have obsessed with those lab numbers now for almost 2 years, scrutinized every ebb and flow and looked for patterns when there isn’t one. Sometimes they cause me to breathe a great big sigh of relief, other times it’s a case of sucking in air and holding it for 7 days, the ‘R’ word walking beside you every step of the way. Cancer sucks and so does the treatment.
But anyway, life trickles on.

ScienceDaily (Jan. 1, 2009) — An extract from grape seeds forces laboratory leukemia cells to commit cell suicide, according to researchers from the University of Kentucky. They found that within 24 hours, 76 percent of leukemia cells had died after being exposed to the extract.

The investigators, who report their findings in the January 1, 2009, issue of Clinical Cancer Research, a journal of the American Association for Cancer Research, also teased apart the cell signaling pathway associated with use of grape seed extract that led to cell death, or apoptosis. They found that the extract activates JNK, a protein that regulates the apoptotic pathway.
While grape seed extract has shown activity in a number of laboratory cancer cell lines, including skin, breast, colon, lung, stomach and prostate cancers, no one had tested the extract in hematological cancers nor had the precise mechanism for activity been revealed.
"These results could have implications for the incorporation of agents such as grape seed extract into prevention or treatment of hematological malignancies and possibly other cancers," said the study's lead author, Xianglin Shi, Ph.D., professor in the Graduate Center for Toxicology at the University of Kentucky.
"What everyone seeks is an agent that has an effect on cancer cells but leaves normal cells alone, and this shows that grape seed extract fits into this category," he said.
Shi adds, however, that the research is not far enough along to suggest that people should eat grapes, grape seeds, or grape skin in excess to stave off cancer. "This is very promising research, but it is too early to say this is chemo-protective."
Hematological cancers – leukemia, lymphoma and myeloma – accounted for an estimated 118,310 new cancer cases and almost 54,000 deaths in 2006, ranking these cancers as the fourth leading cause of cancer incidence and death in the U.S.
Given that epidemiological evidence shows that eating vegetables and fruits helps prevent cancer development, Shi and his colleagues have been studying chemicals known as proanthocyanidins in fruits that contribute to this effect. Shi has found that apple peel extract contains these flavonoids, which have antioxidant activity, and which cause apoptosis in several cancer cell lines but not in normal cells. Based on those studies, and findings from other researchers that grape seed extract reduces breast tumors in rats and skin tumors in mice, they looked at the effect of the compound in leukemia cells.
Using a commercially available grape seed extract, Shi exposed leukemia cells to the extract in different doses and found the marked effect in causing apoptosis in these cells at one of the higher doses.
They also discovered that the extract does not affect normal cells, although they don't know why.
The researchers then used pharmacologic and genetic approaches to determine how the extract induced apoptosis. They found that the extract strongly activated the JNK pathway, which then led to up-regulation of Cip/p21, which controls the cell cycle.
They checked this finding by using an agent that inhibited JNK, and found that the extract was ineffective. Using a genetic approach – silencing the JNK gene – also disarmed grape seed extract's lethal attack in leukemia cells.
"This is a natural compound that appears to have relatively important properties," Shi said.