HERBAL MEDICINE: ALTERNATIVE TREATMENT FOR CANCER THERAPY

In case of cancer, Traditional Chinese medicine-based herbal medicines have gained increasing acceptance worldwide in recent years and are being pursued by pharmaceutical companies as rich resources for drug discovery. For many years, traditional Chinese medicines (TCM) have been applied for the treatment of cancers in China and beyond. Herbal remedies are clearly a complementary and alternative modality used frequently by patients with hemato-oncological neoplasias during the course of their specific treatment. Cancer is a leading cause of death worldwide. There are a lot of cancer causing agents which are divided as physical carcinogens, chemical carcinogens and biological carcinogens. But most of the carcinogens or causes of cancer are related to our lifestyle like diet, habit, occupation, radiation and some infection, etc. Chemoprevention is highly necessary to prevent cancer related preterm death. In this review, we are studied on the herbal medicines, whenever used in cancer treatment and easily available in market. Cancer is a major cause of death, and globally studies are being conducted to prevent cancer or to develop effective nontoxic therapeutic agents. Some herbal drugs, we are discuss in this paper, such as Vinblastin, Podphyllotoxin, Camptothecin,Topotecan,Irinotecan, Etoposide,Teniposide, Vincristin, Taxol,Docetaxol, Colchicines amide, Colchicines, Demecolcine, Monocrotaline etc, all very effective drug for cancer. In experimental studies in the past decade have shown that herbal medicines / Ayurveda is useful in the prevention of cancer and that it also possesses antineoplastic, radio protective and chemo protective effects. Alternative treatment i.e. herbal medicines are very effective and commonly used therapy for cancer treatment.