Antineoplastons are naturally occurring cytodifferentiating agents. Chemically, they are medium and small sized peptides, amino acid derivatives and organic acids, which exist in blood, tissues and urine.

Antineoplaston A-10 (3-phenylacetylamino-2,6-piperidinedione) is the first chemically identified antineoplaston. Previously the authors have shown a strong inverse association of urinary antineoplaston A-10 with breast cancer.

This study is designed to evaluate neutrophil apoptosis in patients with breast cancer at the time of diagnosis, to correlate urinary antineoplaston A-10 levels with neutrophil apoptosis, and to describe the direct effect of A-10 in vitro on neutrophil apoptosis in breast cancer patients.

Significantly higher neutrophil apoptosis levels were detected among patients with breast cancer. Urinary antineoplaston A-10 level is significantly negatively correlated with high apoptosis levels.

In vitro, antineoplaston A-10 was found to inhibit significantly the neutrophil apoptosis. These findings confirm the presence of immune defects among patients with breast cancer and such results should stimulate the development of new strategies to induce and augment immunity for the treatment of breast cancer.

Antineoplaston A-10 may provide rational basis for designing trials to employ its immune modulatory potentials as adjuvant therapy in breast cancer patients.

Badria, F. et al. "Immune modulatory potentials of antineoplaston A-10 in breast cancer patients."
Cancer Lett 2000 Aug 31;157(1):57-63