The Anti-Proliferative Effect of 5-Fluorouracil on Tumor Is Highly Associated with the Renewal of Peripheral White Blood Cells

Xiuping Qian¹, Xiaolei Qian², Xinlin Chen¹, Mei Ge¹, Daijie Chen¹, Wenwei Mao^1*

¹Lab of Microbial and Biochemical Pharmaceutical, School of Pharmacy, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.
²The International Peace Maternity & Child Health Hospital, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai, China.

DOI: 10.4236/jct.2015.67064                

Abstract

The efficacy of chemotherapy is thought to be direct killing of tumor cells, but documented studies have been shown that immunity plays a role in its effectiveness. In a pilot study to observe the bone marrow suppression and regeneration in tumor bearing mice induced by single dose injection of 5-fluorouracil (5-FU), we unexpectedly found that tumors grew fast as bone marrow mononuclear cells (BMC) and peripheral white blood cells (PWBC) were decreased quickly during myelosuppression meanwhile significantly slow as repopulating of BMC and PWBC during bone marrow regeneration after 5-FU treatment, no matter whether in low or high dose administration, but the higher the dose was, the lower of the nadir of BMC and PWBC were reached to, as well as the much more powerful duration and strength of the repopulated BMC and PWBC, suggested that the immunity might be a predominant drive in 5-FU chemotherapy. Due to the fact that BMC is the source of PWBC which is its final maturational and functional form, it could be proposed that the anti-proliferative effect of 5-FU on tumor is highly associated with the renewal of PWBC.

Keywords

5-Fluorouracil, Chemotherapy, Renewal, White Blood Cells, Bone Marrow Regeneration

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

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