Cancer is a disease which frightens people in the world. In 2015, data showed 8.8 deaths due to cancer and most of the deaths were women suffering breast cancer. To date, chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery are methods to treat the breast cancer but they possess high side effects. Noticing the circumstance, four students of Department of Pharmacy of Universitas Muhammadiyah Yogyakarta (UMY) associated in Program Kreativitas Mahasiswa (PKM) to coin cancer drugs with few side effects for the breast cancer.

The students were Siska Febdian Nitami, Anita Dessy Setiawati, and Larasati Azzahra Sasmito. They created a tablet called ‘CaCi’ made from herbs. “We try to make a drug for breast cancer sufferers so that they do not get side effects after drinking the medicine,” told Siska in an interview on Monday (16/7).

The CaCi table is expected to be inexpensive treatment for breast cancer sufferers and to have fewer side effects. The tablet is made from active ingredients of orange peel and tea leaves and is tested by various research methods such as TLC test, Molecular Docking, Cytotoxic, Antioxidant, and Tablet Formulation. The findings revealed that teas leaf extract and orange peel are effective as a co-chemotherapy agent. Through this research, combination of mandarin orange peel ethanolic extract and tea leaves can be utilized and explored to prevent and heal breast cancer.

Siska wished that research conducted by her and her team, funded by Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education (Kemenristekdikti), and passing to a national PKM can support further research. “We are going to continue this research so that it can be much more perfect,” she informed.