Potential Phytochemicals for Cancer Treatment: A Review

Abstract

Today, cancer had been described as one of the deadliest diseases worldwide. It has been estimated that cancer causes about 9.9 million deaths in the year 2020. The conventional treatment for the disease involves single chemotherapy or a combination of mono-chemotherapy and or a combination of mono-chemotherapy and radiotherapy. However, there are negative sides to these approaches which have prompted the search for new therapeutic drugs. In view of this, scientific communities have started looking for innovative sources of anticancer compound of natural origin which include traditional plants. Nowadays, several studies have evaluated the anticancer properties of bioactive components (phytochemicals) derived from the plants both in vivo and in vitro. The phytochemicals are secondary metabolites or chemical compound produced during metabolic process in plants which are useful in the protection of plants. Most of these phytochemicals such as alkaloid, flavonoids, phenolic compounds, cyanidin, fisetin, genistein, gingerol kaempferol, quercetin, resveratrol possessed certain medicinal properties and found to have numerous applications in pharmaceutical industries for treatment of cancer. The paper was aimed to review some plants bioactive components (phytochemicals) used in cancer treatment.