Figure 6.

Lithium does not interfere with the antitumor effect of paclitaxel. A) Cell viability assay of H1975 cells using increasing concentrations of paclitaxel did not show a significant difference between saline-treated cells or lithium-treated cells. Data are expressed as means ± se; n = 6/data point. B) H1975 NSCLC cells were injected into nude mice. Tumor growth was measured after 2 wk and normalized to baseline tumor measurements. No significant difference in tumor volume was observed between vehicle-saline- and vehicle-lithium-treated mice. No significant difference in tumor volume was observed between paclitaxel-saline- or paclitaxel-lithium-treated mice. However, tumor size was substantially different between vehicle-treated mice and paclitaxel-treated mice. Data are expressed as means ± se; n = 5 mice/group. ***P < 0.001. C) H&E staining of representative tumors removed from H1975 xenograft model. Lithium treatment does not appear to interfere with tumor growth or paclitaxel's ability to decrease tumor size. Both paclitaxel-treated groups have extensive recession of tumor growth.