Medicinal Plants for Treatment of Cancer: A Brief Review

Cancer is actually a group of many related diseases that all have to do with cells. Cancer cells are characterized by unregulated growth, as well as insufficient and inappropriate vascular supply. Moreover, a core of cells was subjected to micro environmental stress conditions, and has decreased apoptotic potential through genetic alterations, thereby resulting in resistance to apoptosis. Cancer is one of the major causes of death worldwide where the number of cancer patients is in continuous rise. Cancer is a major public problem whose estimated worldwide new incidence is about 6 million cases per year. It is the second major cause of deaths after cardiovascular diseases. Chemotherapy remains the principal mode of treatment for various cancers. A number of synthetic anticancer drugs are available in practice, but the side effects and the drug interactions are major drawbacks in its clinical utility. Most of the currently used chemotherapy drugs for cancers are known to develop resistance, exhibit non-selective toxicity against normal cells and restrict by dose-limiting side effects. Hence, cancer treatment and development of drugs for this disease remains a major clinical challenge. On the other hand, plants are an exceptionally viable source of biologically active natural products which may serve as commercially significant entities in themselves or which may provide lead structures for the development of modified derivatives possessing enhanced activity and/or reduced toxicity in traeatment of cancer. Herbal medicines are now attracting attention as potential sources of anticancer agents and are widely used due to availability of the materials, affordability, relatively cheap and little or no side effects, wide applicability and therapeutic efficacy which in turn has accelerated the scientific research. For these reasons, World Health Organization (WHO) supports the use of traditional medicines which are efficacious and non toxic. In this review we have summarized few plants having anticancer activity.