Injections of a common household disinfectant could help make radiotherapy more effective against some types of breast cancer.
Hydrogen peroxide creates a toxic environment for cancer cells. The jabs, given directly into the tumour, weaken the cells, making them more vulnerable to radiotherapy.
The peroxide is combined with sodium hyaluronate (used in skin care and for treating stiff knee joints) and this forms a viscous gel which ensures the peroxide’s slow release over 48 hours, to give it time to take effect.
Early studies involving breast cancer patients in Japan found giving the injections, called Kochi Oxydol Radiation Therapy for Unresectable Carcinoma (KORTUC), alongside radiotherapy made it more successful at shrinking tumours. In one study, published in Molecular and Clinical Oncology in 2021, giving the jabs alongside radiotherapy led breast tumours to shrink by on average 97 per cent – that’s three times the success rate of radiotherapy alone.
Now the jabs will be tested in a UK trial on women with large tumours or those whose disease has spread beyond the breast.
Breast cancer patients often have radiotherapy after surgery to lower the risk of the cancer returning, but the bigger the tumour the worse the success rate.
The jabs will be tested in a UK trial on women with large tumours or those whose disease has spread beyond the breast.
While we know it best as a cleaning agent and for its use in antiseptic wipes, hydrogen peroxide is produced by every cell in the body and has a range of functions
It’s also offered to patients with breast cancer that has spread, when it won’t cure the disease but can extend survival.
Now a trial involving 184 breast cancer patients at six UK hospitals, including the Royal Marsden NHS Trust in London, will judge the effectiveness of the injection in women with larger tumours over 3cm and where the cancer has spread to lymph nodes. Half the patients will receive the injections plus radiotherapy; the others will receive radiotherapy only.
An earlier study at Royal Marsden, involving 12 women with breast tumours which were surgically inoperable, showed that the jabs helped control tumour growth for up to two years. The women had twice-weekly injections (the procedure lasts 15 minutes and is done under local anaesthetic) for three weeks before radiotherapy.
Dr Navita Somaiah, a clinical oncologist at Royal Marsden, says the treatment could be used for ‘multiple cancer types’
The results of the study, published in the International Journal of Radiation Oncology, Biology and Physics in 2020, showed that in women who had not responded to other treatments, the injections and radiotherapy helped control the growth of a tumour for 12 to 24 months.
‘Hydrogen peroxide is a cheap, well understood and readily available compound, and our studies show that it could boost the effectiveness of radiotherapy,’ says Dr Navita Somaiah, a clinical oncologist at Royal Marsden.
‘Our hope is that using this solution will mean that many patients with breast cancer will be able to have more effective treatment, or even open up new options.’
She says the treatment could be used for ‘multiple cancer types’.
While we know it best as a cleaning agent and for its use in antiseptic wipes to clean wounds, hydrogen peroxide is produced by every cell in the body and has a range of functions, including acting as a messenger between cells. It is broken down in the body into oxygen and water by the enzyme catalase.
The solution in the injections, 0.5 per cent, is much weaker than the hydrogen peroxide used in antiseptic wipes, for instance.
When this solution is broken down in the body, it creates an oxygen-rich environment which in turn stresses and weakens cancer cells, making them more vulnerable to radiotherapy (cancer cells have evolved to thrive in low-oxygen environments because the network of blood vessels that bring oxygen to them often can’t keep up with their rate of growth).
KORTUC was invented by Professor Yasuhiro Ogawa, an emeritus professor at Kochi University in Japan, in 2006 and was originally developed for advanced breast cancer but has since been tested on other types of advanced cancer, such as cervical.
A 2023 study in Oncology Letters, involving 14 women with recurrent cervical cancer, found that KORTUC, given two hours before interstitial brachytherapy, a form of radiotherapy administered as radioactive pellets placed within the tumour, improved the prognosis for patients.
The tumour did not get bigger in 79 per cent of patients who underwent the combination regimen, compared with 63 per cent having radiotherapy only.
The reported side-effects of KORTUC have so far been limited to discomfort at the injection site for up to 24 hours. Professor Karol Sikora, a clinical oncologist based in London, is however cautious.
He told Good Health: ‘We have only seen a preliminary study so far and there were only 12 patients in it. There are a lot of good ideas but this needs a lot more work to study the dose response and potential for unpleasant side-effects. The upcoming trial results are necessary before anyone gets excited.’
