Potential Application of Curcumin and Its Analogues in the Treatment Strategy of Patients with Primary Epithelial Ovarian Cancer

Abstract

Recent findings on the molecular basis of ovarian cancer development and progression create new opportunities to develop anticancer medications that would affect specific metabolic pathways and decrease side systemic toxicity of conventional treatment. Among new possibilities for cancer chemoprevention, much attention is paid to curcumin—A broad-spectrum anticancer polyphenolic derivative extracted from the rhizome of Curcuma longa L. According to ClinicalTrials.gov at present there are no running pilot studies, which could assess possible therapeutic benefits from curcumin supplementation to patients with primary epithelial ovarian cancer. Therefore, the goal of this review was to evaluate potential preclinical properties of curcumin and its new analogues on the basis of in vivo and in vitro ovarian cancer studies. Curcumin and its different formulations have been shown to display multifunctional mechanisms of anticancer activity, not only in platinum-resistant primary epithelial ovarian cancer, but also in multidrug resistant cancer cells/xenografts models. Curcumin administered together with platinum-taxane chemotherapeutics have been reported to demonstrate synergistic effects, sensitize resistant cells to drugs, and decrease their biologically effective doses. An accumulating body of evidence suggests that curcumin, due to its long-term safety and an excellent profile of side effects should be considered as a beneficial support in ovarian cancer treatment strategies, especially in patients with platinum-resistant primary epithelial recurrent ovarian cancer or multidrug resistant disease. Although the prospect of curcumin and its formulations as anticancer agents in ovarian cancer treatment strategy appears to be challenging, and at the same time promising, there is a further need to evaluate its effectiveness in clinical studies.

Chrysin attenuates progression of ovarian cancer cells by regulating signaling cascades and mitochondrial dysfunction

“…Moreover, the consumption of tea attenuated ovarian cancer risks in a cohort study (Cassidy, Huang, Rice, Rimm, & Tworoger, ). Furthermore, supplementation of platinum‐taxane‐based chemotherapeutic agents with curcumin induced synergistic effects on chemotherapy‐resistant epithelial ovarian cancer cells in pre‐clinical trials (Terlikowska, Witkowska, Zujko, Dobrzycka, & Terlikowski, ). Therefore, the development of therapeutic agents from naturally occurring compounds with anticancer activities is important for the prevention and therapy of epithelial ovarian cancer.…”

Curcumin induces apoptotic cell death and protective autophagy in human gastric cancer cells

“…As a natural compound, it has been proven to be effective with minimal toxicity, which selectively acts on cancer cells over normal cells (5,6). Hitherto, curcumin and its analog have been reported to play an anticancer role in several tumor models, including glioblastoma (7), liver (8), colorectal (9), lung (10), ovarian (11), breast (12) and oral (13) cancer. The underlying mechanisms have been demonstrated to be associated with the inhibition of proliferation, angiogenesis, invasion and metastasis of cancer cells, or apoptosis induction by curcumin (14)(15)(16).…”

Recent advances of curcumin and its analogues in breast cancer prevention and treatment

“…Targeted therapeutic approaches focus on proteins and pathways such as MAPK, HER2/EKBB2, p13K/Akt/mTOR, PAPP, TGF-α, EGF, and p53 identified in the malignancy. 5,6 Terlikowska et al 7 have identified approximately twenty-six curcumin mediated signalling pathways such as PPAR, COX-2, EGFR and NF-κB. In vivo studies are often performed in three established adenocarcinoma and invasive ductal carcinoma cell lines; MDA-MB-231, MDA-MB-468, SkBr3 and MDA-MB-435, MCF-7, T47D respectively.…”