The incidence of melanoma is increasing because o...

Hypotheses: Excessive UV radiation causes increased melanoma incidence. Postoperation chemotherapy will destroy lym-phocytes and compromise immune response. Immunodepression is also detected in patients with cancers. Previous studies suggested that polysaccharide–protein complexes manifested immunomodulatory and antitumor activities. Radix Astragali (RA) extract is a product of polysaccharide–protein complexes, which has been used in the treatment of a variety of diseases because of its low toxicity to the host. Tanshinone (TA) is a derivative of phenanthrenequinone isolated from Danshen, which is suggested to inhibit tumor growth by inducing apoptosis in tumor cells. Carboplatin (CA) is a commonly used chemotherapeutic drug in melanoma treatment. Therefore, we hypothesized that the combination of RA and TA will help CA better inhibit the B16 cell growth. Study Design: The study will test that the efficacy of growth inhibition of tumor cell produced by CA þ RA þ TA is better than CAþ RA or CAþ TA.Methods: The B16 tumor cells were injected to Swiss-Hauschka (ICR) mice subcutaneously. Twenty-four hours later, mice received CA intraperitoneally, CAþ RA (RA were administered gastrically at the dosage of 10 g/kg body weight), CAþ TA (TA were administered gastrically at the dosage of 0.5 g/kg body weight), or no treatment (model group). Tumor weight, volume, latency, incidence, the percentage of CD4þ and CD8þ in spleen, and natural killer (NK), and cytotoxic lymphocyte (CTL) activities were measured and compared among different groups. Results: Compared with mice treated with CAþ RA, CAþ TA, or CA alone, the mice treated with CAþ RAþ TA showed (1) significantly smaller tumor weight and tumo