Srinivasa Raja, M.D.
Complementary Therapies for Cancer Pain
The primary goal of this proposal is to investigate the effects of dietary supplements and traditional herbal remedies on pain behavior in various animal models of chronic pain due to breast and prostate cancer. Cancer pain is often inadequately treated, and patients seek complementary and alternative therapies such as nutritional supplements and herbal medicines to alleviate their unmitigated pain.
The primary role of this project in the Center is to develop a powerful animal model for examining multiple kinds of cancer pain associated with breast and prostate cancer where a variety of CAM interventions can be used. The hypothesis is that pain, by negatively altering neuroendocrine responses, reduces immune protection and fosters the growth of new metastatic lesions in rats with mammary adenocarcinoma.
Preliminary studies in our laboratories indicate that a soy diet prevents the development of neuropathic pain in an animal model of partial nerve injury and that tart cherries have anti-oxidant and anti-inflammatory effects. This proposal will examine the analgesic effects of soy and tart cherry as dietary supplements in five different well-established animal models of chronic pain that represent different aspects of pain associated with cancer: a model of chronic inflammation, two models of partial nerve injury, a model of cytotoxic neuropathy, and a model of bone cancer pain.
Unrelieved pain has profound effects on the cancer patient's quality of life. Many patients with pain are inadequately treated by physicians due to attitudinal, educational, institutional and other barriers surrounding the use of opioids, the drugs of choice in treating cancer pain. To relieve their suffering from pain, patients seek complementary and alternative therapies such as nutritional supplements, herbal medicines, acupuncture and mind-body modalities.
This proposal will examine the analgesic effects and the mechanism of actions of soy and tart cherry dietary supplements in four different animal models of chronic pain. We also plan to use these animal models of chronic pain to investigate the potential analgesic effects of certain promising Indian, Chinese and Japanese herbal medicines.
