THE EFFECT OF HIGH DOSE OF GREEN TEA ON THERAPEUTIC ACTION OF GAMMA RADIATION IN LIVER CARCINOMA.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is one of the most common malignancies worldwide and the second leading cause of death from cancer. Radiotherapy is considered as a corner stone of cancer treatment, one of the future challenges is to minimize the harmful effects of radiotherapy by reducing its dose and combined use of natural antitumor agent. Plant extracts eliciting radioprotective efficacy which can be used to overcome those harmful effects. in this study green tea extract was used in combination with radiotherapy in HCC induced rats model. forty eight female albino HCC induced rats were used , They divided into four groups: control HCC group, group exposed to 10 Gy gamma radiation, group ingested with high dose of green tea extract (2.06g/Kg) and the forth group received a combined treatment of green tea extract and gamma radiation. Serum alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) was measured by ELIZA technique and tumor generating factor-? (TGF ?) expression was determined using RT-PCR method. Results: AFP and TGF-? were decreased in HCC treated group with radiation while the group treated with green tea extract showed decline in serum AFP level and increase in TGF-? expression level. In HCC treated group with combination of radiation and green tea extract, there was a decrease in AFP level with extreme elevation in TGF-?. In conclusion, the use of high dose of green tea extract in combination with radiation in HCC might prevent the antitumor therapeutic effect of radiation and produced an extremely elevation in the TGF-? expression.