THE EFFECT OF CANNABIDIOL ON THE GROWTH OF TUMOURIGENIC (MCF-7) AND NON-TUMOURIGENIC (MCF-10) HUMAN BREAST CELLS

Breast Cancer is a crucial disease faced prominently by the female population in the United Kingdom, which reports more than 55 thousand new cases annually (GLOBOCAN, 2014). A variety of treatments have been introduced and tested in different regions of the world; however, breast cancer still causes more than 11 thousand females to lose their lives every year in the United Kingdom. This declares breast cancer as the deadliest of all known cancers among black women and seeks immediate interventions. Currently, cannabinoids treatment has been identified to play analgesic and antiemetic properties that highlight its applicability in palliative medicine. Cannabinoids indicated anticancer properties when tested in the pre-clinical setting for mice model. Cannabinoids are known to exhibit these properties by modulating signal pathways of cancer cells, causing inhibition of cancer cell proliferation, autophagy stimulation, and programmed cell death. The current study compared the possible influence of crude extract of Cannabis sativa and its main compound cannabidiol on tumourigenic (MCF-7) and non-tumourigenic (MCF-10) human breast cells proliferation. This study suggests Cannabis sativa crude extracts are more effective than cannabidiol to prevent cell proliferation and induce apoptosis in tumourigenic (MCF-7) human breast cell lines while non-cancerous MCF-10 cells survived the cannabidiol treatment, which suggested that CBD prefers to kill cancer cells over normal cells.