Petty Spurge

Here's another weed on my property - it it is NOT EDIBLE however it is interesting in another way.

Binomial name: Euphorbia peplus
Common name: Petty Spurge or Radium Weed

Identification:
It is a fairly small weed less than 0.5m high and tends to have just one stem with small pale green leaves. When the stem is broken a white sap exudes. On my property it grows in paths, around the base of the aquaponics grow beds, fence lines etc.

Use:
The sap is the useful part of this plant. Historically, it has been used for treatment of warts, corns and skin cancers and indeed, there is an ingredient in the sap that does cause regression of such skin lesions.
Warning: get any skin lesions diagnosed first! Your GP is the person who can give you the ok to try this treatment. Anything , especially a sore that is not due to any injury and does not heal, is a skin cancer until proven otherwise. Especially if it hurts a little when touched.
Now, sunspots (medically, these are called solar keratoses) are small scaly patches that don't hurt when touched and the sap of Petty Spurge could be a way to get rid of these and also those warty looking skin lesions called seborrhoeic keratoses. I would apply some sap directly to the skin lesion for 3 consecutive days. There should be quite a reaction and after healing, the lesion should have gone. Obviously don't get any in eyes but hands, arms or legs would be ok.

Now to some scientific studies from Pubmed:
there were 31 citations for Petty Spurge , here are three I found interesting:
1. In a 2009 double blind study using 3 days of treatment, a clearance rate of 75-100% was obtained for sunspots.
2. In a University of Queensland trial, also in 2009, on biopsy proven sunspots of 5 lesions each patient using 3 different concentrations of an extract of petty spurge, a clearance of about 70% was achieved.
3. Finally in 2007, the International Conference on Pep005 (an extract from Petty Spurge) discussed it's use in skin cancer, leukaemia and bladder cancer.

ref http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez search term Euphorbia peplus items 1,2 and 6

An Australian company Peplin is apparently bringing a cream/ointment to market with the active ingredient from Petty Spurge.