Drug therapy: Solamargine and other solasodine rhamnosyl glycosides as anticancer agents

Abstract

In the last century, the discovery of cytotoxic agents was revolutionary for anticancer therapy. These therapies have resulted in better under-standing of cancer in general. However, the de-velopment of agents that combine efficacy, safe-ty and convenience remains a great challenge. The narrow, if not adverse, therapeutic index of most drugs, the damage not only to cancer cells, but also to normal and healthy tissue and the occurrence of resistance have limited anticancer efficacy. This review presents the development of promising novel cytotoxic solasodine rham-nosyl glycoside drugs that offer not only gains in specificity and efficacy, but also in safety, tol-erability, non-resistance and convenience in the treatment of patients with cancer.