Effects of blood biochemistry and tumor's weights of Artemisia capillaris methanol extract in mice bearing cancer cells

The Artemisia capillaris THUNB is a perennial herb that belongs to the family Compositae spp and probably the most common plant among the various herbal folk remedies being used in the treatment of abdominal pain, hepatitis, chronic liver disease, jaundice and coughing in Korea. Recently the biological and pharmacological actions of herb have been studied well such as antibacterial, antidiabetic and antitumor activities. This experiment was conducted to investigate antitumor and immunomodulatory effects of Artemisia capillaris extracts against Hepa-1c1c7 and Sarcoma 180 cancer cells on in vivo experimental tests. On in vivo experimental tests using 280 ICR mice, the gain of body weight in the control-group mice bearing Sarcoma 180 ascites tumor was 1.5 times more than that of the normal-group mice after 33 days. However, the gain of body weight in all experimental groups administered with Artemisia capillaris extracts was significantly lower than that of the control-group mice (P<0.05). The mean survival times of mice administered with Artemisia capillaris extracts of 25 and 100 mg/kg for 28 days were shown to be 25.39% and 15.39% longer than that of the control-group mice injected with saline (P<0.05). Artemisia capillaris extracts showed the highest tumor inhibition effects, which were 42.4% and 27.2% when intraperitoneally injected with doses of 25 and 100 mg/kg once a day for 28 days in inoculated ICR mice with Sarcoma 180 solid tumor cells (P<0.05). The results suggest that Artemisia capillaris methanol extracts have prominent antitumor effects on the cancer cell lines Hepa-1c1c7 and Sarcoma 180.