Anacardic acid and cardanol: Prospective applications for cancer therapy, drug delivery, and imaging

Abstract

Versatile derivatization feasible for cardanol to generate various amphiphilic structure-directing molecules bestows this naturally occurring phenol a great promise in the field of biomedical research. This chapter discusses the use of cardanol and cardanol derivatives for cancer therapy, drug delivery, and imaging applications. Cardanol has proven anti-proliferative effects on cancer cells, which could help its derivatives to evolve as therapeutic alternatives for anticancer treatment. At the same time, the structure-directing capacity of cardanol derivatives has been successfully used to obtain various gels and nanoparticles for drug delivery and imaging applications. These findings are summarized in three sections namely cardanol as an anticancer drug, cardanol gels, and cardanol-based nanomorphologies for drug delivery applications. The chapter also discusses prospective biomedical applications of cardanol.