Antiproliferation effects of hexadecylphosphocholine on solid tumour and leukaemia selectively in vitro

Hexadecylphosphocholine (HePC), an alkylphospholipid analogue representing a new class of antitumor agents, exerts sufficient oncolytic potencies that it might be developed as a selective antitumour drug. This paper reports that 12 cell lines of leukaemia and solid tumour employed in this study were inhibited by HePC in vitro. This result indicated that HePC possessed general antitumour properties, but did not interfere significantly with cell proliferation of normal BMC in tests of colony formation in granulocytic-macrophage colonies (CFU-GM). Because of these advantages, we suggest that HePC would be an excellent antitumour agent for selectively killing tumour cells and is of low toxicity as compared to conventional cytotoxic agents.