Honey May Prevent Recurring Tumors

By LINDSEY TANNER
.c The Associated Press


CHICAGO (AP) - A provocative Turkish study suggests that using honey as an
ointment during a certain type of colon-cancer surgery can help prevent
tumors from recurring.

While the research was done in mice and no one expects hospitals to start
stocking operating rooms with honey jars, honey has been used as a folk
remedy for healing since biblical times.

And a Mayo Clinic cancer expert said the results, though preliminary, are too
fascinating to be dismissed.

The research was aimed at improving the safety of laparoscopic surgery, an
increasingly popular technique that involves tiny keyhole incisions and
skinny instruments.

Enthusiasm for the technique has been tempered by some reports that
laparoscopy for colon cancer can itself cause tumors to develop in the
abdominal wall, along the path the surgical instruments took.

The Turkish researchers suggest honey might work as a barrier to tumor cells
when it is spread in the incisions. The findings, based on a study of 60
mice, were published in December's issue of the Archives of Surgery.

Dr. Tonia Young-Fadok, a Mayo Clinic surgeon participating in a U.S. study on
whether laparoscopic surgery for colon cancer can cause new tumors, said
substances in honey might actually help dissolve tumor cells.

``It's not clear what the power of honey is, but there's certainly something
here that's of interest,'' Young-Fadok said.

Laparoscopies are being used increasingly to treat a variety of conditions
that formerly required major operations. Skinny instruments and a slender
viewing tube called a laparoscope are inserted through tiny incisions. Carbon
dioxide gas is injected into the body cavity to cause the abdomen to swell,
creating a work space for surgeons.

Colon tumors are essentially the only type of cancer for which doctors use
laparoscopy.

Some theorize that the gas might cause cancer cells to shift location and
form tumors. Others suggest that inexperienced surgeons might inadvertently
cause malignant cells to implant as they extract the tumor.

Young-Fadok said some research has found that tumors occur in less than 1
percent of cases and that when the laparoscopy is done by experienced
surgeons, the risk is essentially zero.

In the Turkish study, led by Dr. Ismail Hamzaoglu of Istanbul University,
researchers injected the mice with air, made neck incisions and injected the
animals with tumor cells. The researchers spread honey inside the incisions
in one group of mice before and after the injections.

All 30 mice without honey developed tumors, compared with only eight of the
30 honey-treated mice.

In a commentary accompanying the study, Chicago plastic surgeon Dr. Thomas
Mustoe noted that other research has suggested honey has anti-bacterial
properties and may be an effective treatment for burns.

The study ``highlights another potential use,'' Mustoe said.

On the Net:

http://jama.ama-assn.org

http://www.clinicaltrials.gov

AP-NY-12-14-00 1600EST