Pinoy anti-skin cancer cream goes overseas

A herbal cream developed by Filipino inventor Rolando de la Cruz in the 1970s to cure skin cancer will be sold in pharmacies in Canada and Australia sometime this year.

Called DeBCC, the cream can particularly cure basal cell carcinoma (BCC), a common type of skin cancer.

It was developed from extracts of cashew nuts and other herbs using a biotechnological process to fortify the basic ingredient.

During the ’70s, De la Cruz discovered that cashew nut extracts can be used to remove warts and moles because of the natural heat that they produce.

In surgical treatments of BCC, heat is also used to sear the tumor before it is removed.

De la Cruz used the cream to remove his own wart to prove its effectiveness.

He eventually conducted more research and submitted the extracts to bioassay or biological assay, a type of scientific experiment conducted to measure the effects of a substance on a living organism.

According to De la Cruz, DeBCC is applied on the affected part of the skin using a cotton bud. It usually takes three to five months for the BCC to be eliminated.

The product had earlier been sent to Europe and the United States where it was also recognized by experts and patients.

Eventually, companies in Canada and Australia sought exclusive distributorship of the cream.

DeBCC is being marketed by RCC Amazing Touch International, which has 17 clinics nationwide and has exclusive distributorships in clinics in Singapore, Malaysia, United Kingdom, Japan, Switzerland and the United States.

Last year, the product was among 11 awardees in the 93rd Annual Clinical Congress of the American College of Surgeons.

De la Cruz also won the Obelisk Award as a world-class inventor. In 2006, he also bagged the Double Gold Award during the British Invention Show.