Soul Searching

This isn’t about the very tiny brains in scorpions. It’s about the treatment of a very aggressive form of brain cancer which has very few options in terms of treatment. The success of cancer treatment (chemotherapy, radiation, surgery) is variable depending on the type of cancer, its origin, location, etc. The treatment of brain cancer poses some unique obstacles in forming effective treatment strategies. Primarily is the obstruction to the introduction of chemotherapeutic agents to the brain by the “blood brain barrier.” Very few substances can pass through this filter. One thing that can is scorpion venom. While this is not news to most of us in the Chinese medicine world, Western medicine is just getting on board with some research that shows how effective this traditional substance can be (although the version used in the research was a synthetic version).

You can find the story here.

Thanks Kathy for the heads up

Technorati Tags: brain cancer, glioma, chinese medicine, tcm, chinese medicine, scorpion venom