Researchers in California have determined that a chemical derived from soybeans can help prevent oral cancer, or cancer of the mouth.
Scientists at the University of California at Irvine said their study is believed to be one of the first findings, based on human research, showing that the soybean derivative can play such a role in oral cancer prevention.
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Oral cancer has one of the lowest survival rates of all cancers.
The soybean derivative studied is a chemical scientists call the Bowman- Birk inhibitor. The chemical was first identified by chemists almost four decades ago, but now the team of California scientists has determined that it can reduce the size of pre-cancerous lesions in the mouth which can lead to oral cancer.
“This study shows that it may be possible to stave off the development of leukoplakia and therefore prevent more cases of oral cancer from occurring,” Dr. Frank Meyskens, director of a university cancer center and a leader of the research team, said.
The pre-cancerous lesions in the mouth are called oral leukoplakia.
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By GlobalData“The best way to cure cancer is to prevent cancer, and we are encouraged by the fact that a simple dose of a chemical was able to achieve this without side effects,” Dr. Meyskens said.
The study, led by Dr. Meyskens and Dr. William Armstrong, an assistant professor of head and neck surgery at the university, was published in the journal Clinical Cancer Research.
In the study, 32 participants took a daily dose of the soy derivative in lozenge form for one month. Ten of the participants showed a reduction in the size of the pre-cancerous lesions by about half. Average size of the decrease for the entire group was 24 percent.
About 30,000 cases of oral cancer are diagnosed in the United States each year. While other cancers have seen their survival rates improved, the rate for oral cancer has not. Only half of patients diagnosed with oral cancer are alive five years later. About 75 percent of oral cancers are attributed to the use of tobacco.
