Cancer Therapy Challenge: It Is Time to Look in the “St. Patrick’s Well” of the Nature

Abstract

Cancer still remains a leading cause of death despite improvements in diagnosis, drug discovery and therapy approach. Therefore, there is a strong need to improve methodologies as well as to increase the number of approaches available. Natural compounds of different origins (i.e., from fungi, plants, microbes, etc.) represent an interesting approach for fighting cancer. In particular, synergistic strategies may represent an intriguing approach, combining natural compounds with classic chemotherapeutic drugs to increase therapeutic efficacy and lower the required drug concentrations. In this review, we focus primarily on those natural compounds utilized in synergistic approached to treating cancer, with particular attention to those compounds that have gained the most research interest.

Keywords

• ascorbic acid
• cancer
• cancer therapy
• capsaicin
• curcumin
• epigallocatechin-3-gallate