Translational Therapeutics Induction of cancer-specific cytotoxicity towards human prostate and skin cells using quercetin and ultrasound S Paliwal1, J Sundaram1 and S Mitragotri1 1Department of Chemical Engineering, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-5080, USA Correspondence to: Dr S Mitragotri, E-mail: samir@engineering.ucsb.edu Bioflavonoids, such as quercetin, have recently emerged as a new class of chemotherapeutic drugs for the treatment of various cancer types, but are marred by their low potency and poor selectivity. We report that a short application of low-frequency ultrasound selectively sensitises prostate and skin cancer cells against quercetin. Pretreatment of cells with ultrasound (20 kHz, 2 W cm-2, 60 s) selectively induced cytotoxicity in skin and prostate cancer cells, while having minimal effect on corresponding normal cell lines. About 90% of the viable skin cancer cell population was lost within 48 h after ultrasound-quercetin (50 M) treatment. Ultrasound reduced the LC50 of quercetin for skin cancer cells by almost 80-fold, while showing no effect on LC50 for nonmalignant skin cells. British Journal of Cancer (2005) 92, 499-502. doi:10.1038/sj.bjc.6602364 Published online 1 February 2005 Remember we are NOT Doctors and have NO medical training. This site is like an Encylopedia - there are many pages, many links on many topics. Support our work with any size DONATION - see left side of any page - for how to donate. You can help raise awareness of CAM.