Some effects of the essential fatty acids linoleic acid and alpha-linolenic acid and of their metabolites gamma-linolenic acid, arachidonic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid, docosahexaenoic acid, and of prostaglandins A1 and E1 on the proliferation of human osteogenic sarcoma cells in culture.

Gamma-linolenic acid has been shown to suppress the rate of proliferation of a number of malignant cell lines in culture. To test the proposal that this was a specific prostaglandin 1- or 2-series effect, 379 batches of MG63 human osteogenic sarcoma cells were seeded in Greiner flasks and cultured in media supplemented with a range of unsaturated fatty acids and prostaglandins. The monounsaturated fatty acid oleic acid enhanced the rate of cancer cell proliferation. The polyunsaturated fatty acids linoleic acid, gamma-linolenic acid, arachidonic acid, alpha-linolenic acid, eicosapentaenoic acid and docosahexaenoic acid, as well as prostaglandins E1 and A1 suppressed the rate of cell proliferation. Total suppression of colony forming and cell proliferation occurred at high levels of polyunsaturated fatty acid supplementation. In addition gamma-linolenic in the form of evening primrose seed oil and vitamin C has been given to 6 patients with histologically diagnosed primary liver cell cancer. Some clinical improvement and reduction in tumor size occurred in 3 cases. One patient has shown remarkable improvement in reduction of liver and tumor size on the CAT scan and reduction of the serum alkaline phosphatase from 2830 to 295 units and gamma-glutamyl transaminase from 274 to 82 units. Thus preliminary clinical results suggest that gamma-linolenic acid may be effective in the management of human cancer patients and further trials should be conducted. However, the cell culture results suggest that although the essential fatty acids suppress proliferation, eicosanoids of all 3 series may be involved. The proliferation suppressive effect of docosahexaenoic acid suggests that other aspects than only eicosanoid activity may also be important in the suppression of cancer cell proliferation.