Background: Currently, advanced prostate cancer (CaP) is not curable. In this report hyperbaric oxygen (HBO) is examined as an adjuvant to chemotherapy and as a stand-alone treatment.
Materials and methods: CaP cell monolayers grown under normoxic conditions were exposed to cisplatin, taxol or doxorubicin for 90 minutes under HBO (3.0 atmospheres, 100% O2) or normal pressure air.
Results: HBO reduced by 47% the concentration of doxorubicin required to produce a 20% reduction in cell numbers, but did not change the concentration required to produce a > 50% reduction. HBO increased the sensitivity of PC-3 cells to taxol at all concentrations, (mean 1.8%). Cisplatin chemosensitivity was not affected by HBO. HBO reduced the growth rate of DU-145 8.1% relative to control (p = 0.01), and PC-3 2.7% (p = 0.12).
Conclusions: This study shows that HBO can decrease the rate of growth, and increase sensitivity to anticancer agents, however, the effects are cell line dependent.