Abstract

BACKGROUND Ferula assa foetida commonly consumed as a healthy beverage has been demonstrated to have various biological activities, including antioxidation, anti-obesity and anti-cancer. OBJECTIVE Our study aims to investigate the antitumor effect of asafoetida in vivo using mouse mammary carcinoma 4T1 cells. MATERIALS AND METHODS In the study, female BALB/c mice were divided into two groups (n = 6), which were control (untreated) and other group of mice with breast cancer treated with 100 mg/kg of asafoetida, respectively, by oral gavage. All mice were injected into the mammary fat pad with 4T1 cells (1 × 10(5) 4T1 cells/0.1 ml of phosphate buffer solution). Asafoetida was administered on day 15 after the tumor had developed for 3 weeks. At end of experiment, tumor weight, tumor volume and tumor burden were measured and lung, liver, kidney and tumor were harvested and sections were prepared for histopathological analysis. Lipoxygenase inhibitory and antioxidant activity of asafoetida was also determined. RESULTS Our results showed that treatment with asafoetida was effective in decreasing the tumor weight and tumor volume in treated mice. Body weight significantly increased in female BALB/c mice against control. Apart from the antitumor effect, asafoetida decreased lung, liver and kidney metastasis and also increased areas of necrosis in the tumor tissue respectively. CONCLUSIONS The present study demonstrated that asafoetida has potent antitumor and antimetastasis effects on breast cancer and is a potential source of natural antitumor products.