Figure 4.

Antitumor efficacy and toxicity of 5-FU and curcumin alone or in combination in nude mice bearing advanced human gastric cancer MKN45 tumor xenografts in vivo. A: Kinetics of tumor volume (mm³) in nude mice treated with 5-FU and curcumin alone or in combination; B: Kinetics of body weight change in nude mice treated with 5-FU and curcumin alone or in combination; C: Tumor weight (g) of MKN45 xenografts bearing in nude mice treated with 5-FU and curcumin alone or in combination on day 18 when the mice were humanely sacrificed; D: Tumor inhibitory rates (%) of MKN45 xenografts bearing in nude mice treated with 5-FU and curcumin alone or in combination on day 18, the data were calculated from actually tumor weight. Treatments were initiated 10 days after cultured MKN45 cells were inoculated subcutaneously (s.c.) in nude mice when the tumors reached to ~100 mm³ (mg) by i.p. injection with 0.2 ml of normal saline (as control), 5-FU (52 mg/kg), curcumin (74 mg/kg), or 5-FU (52 mg/kg) + curcumin (74 mg/kg), respectively. The mice were treated every three days (day 0, 3, 6, 9, 12, and 15) for total of 6 times and were humanely sacrificed on day 18 when the tumors in the control mice reached to near 2000 mm³ (mg). Eight mice were used for each group and the data were presented as mean ± SD.