Vincristine, also known as leurocristine and marketed under the brand name Oncovin among others, is a chemotherapy medication used to treat a number of types of cancer.

[5] Serious side effects may include neuropathic pain, lung damage, or low white blood cells which increases the risk of infection.

[3] The main side effects of vincristine are chemotherapy-induced peripheral neuropathy, hyponatremia, constipation, and hair loss.

The symptoms are progressive and enduring tingling numbness, pain and hypersensitivity to cold, beginning in the hands and feet and sometimes affecting the arms and legs.

[12][13] Accidental injection of vinca alkaloids into the spinal canal (intrathecal administration) is highly dangerous, with a mortality rate approaching 100 percent.

The medical literature documents cases of ascending paralysis due to massive encephalopathy and spinal nerve demyelination, accompanied by intractable pain, almost uniformly leading to death.

Liposome encapsulation increases vincristine's plasma concentration and circulation lifetime in the body, and allows the drug to enter cells more easily.

[24] Having been used as a folk remedy for centuries, studies in the 1950s revealed that the rosy periwinkle Catharanthus roseus contained over 120 alkaloids, many of which are biologically active, the two most significant being vincristine and vinblastine.

Its use as an anti-tumor, anti-mutagenic agent is well documented in the ancient Ayurveda system of medicine and in the folk culture of Madagascar and Southern Africa.

Treatment of the ground plant with Skellysolve-B (hexane), followed by dilute tartaric acid and benzene extraction, provided an active fraction.

This fraction was further chromatographed on deactivated aluminium oxide using trichloromethane and benzene, and separation by pH using extraction with various buffers to yield vincristine.

[27] Vincristine was approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in July 1963 under the trade name Oncovin and was marketed by Eli Lilly and Company.

[34] Catharanthus roseus has been a cosmopolitan species since before the Industrial Revolution and the plant's use in folk remedies suggested general bioactivity for diabetes treatment, not cancer.

In the mid-eighteenth century, botanist Judith Sumner recorded the arrival of Catharanthus roseus at London's Chelsea Physic Garden from the Jardin des plantes in Paris.

Their research focused on the wild collection of periwinkle roots and leaves from roadsides and fields and its industrial cultivation on large farms.