On December 25, Dr. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Tram - Director of Research Development and Manufacture CRINA Center, under National phytopharma joint-stock company had the honor to receive the Kovalevskaya Award. In the past 15 years, she has totally made efforts on Crila capsule - the product totally extracted from Crinum latifolium L. leaves as well as the first medicine in the world treating uterine fibroids.
Although Crila capsule was launched to the market 2 years ago, Dr. Tram is still shuttling constantly between HCMC and Hanoi. Despite having the manufacturing formula and automatic operation chain, Dr. Tram always attends in time to solve every arising problems with the desire that patients can use the drugs with the highest effect.
Over 15 years ago, she took the courage to spend tens of thousands dollars of her prize for her first scientific research in Bulgaria and all the money selling her own land and houses buying Crinum latifolium L seedlings to plant.
After months and years of endurance "to eat and to sleep" with the plant holding such an exquisite name, finally she succeeded in producing the first drug in the world treating uterine fibroids for women. This success was accepted and appraised highly by the Council of Science in Vietnam and regarded as one of the medical achievements of Vietnam. “The drug has proven that bioactive substances extracted from medicinal herbs can stimulate the immune system, support treatment for cancer, and prevent blocking angiogenesis of tumor cells and other benign tumors”.
At that time, after Crila test on animals and humans to treat uterine fibroids and BPH in foreign countries showed a good result, Dr. Tram had to spend 5 years persuading reputed professors and doctors to accept the proposals so that Crila can undergo clinical trials on Vietnamese patients.
Many people stated that there are no capsules from medicinal herbs that can cure tumors. A leading obstetrician said ‘If this drug can treat uterine fibroids, it will be magical drug’.
After that, through modern methods of examination, ultrasound, and PSA test on patients having BPH and being on the risk of prostate cancer, she got good results. A patient with a 63-mm-tumor was assigned to surgery. After treatment, the tumor size reduced to 25mm. Besides, patients having uterine fibroids with 5 fibromas, after taking the drug, they had only 1-2 fibromas left or no longer had any fibromas.
Mistakenly using Cambodian Crinum latifolium L. may cause infertility.
Nowadays, many people knowing the effects of Crinum latifolium L. through words of mouth use leaves that have unknown origin; this can lead to disastrous consequences. In addition to the same effect as Vietnamese Crinum latifolium L., Cambodian Crinum latifolium L. have contraceptive effect. Therefore, women having uterine fibroids symptoms, mistakenly using Cambodian Crinum latifolium L. may suffer from infertility. There are also a number of other plants belonging to the Crinum family, having very similar appearance with Vietnamese Crinum latifolium L. but containing a lot of toxics