Clinical effects of curcumin in enhancing cancer therapy: A systematic review

Abstract

Background: Curcumin is herbal compound that has been shown to have anti-cancer effects in pre-clinical and clinical studies. The anti-cancer effects of curcumin include inhibiting the carcinogenesis, inhibiting angiogenesis, and inhibiting tumour growth. This study aims to determine the Clinical effects of curcumin in different types of cancers using systematic review approach. Methods: A systematic review methodology is adopted for undertaking detailed analysis of the effects of curcumin in cancer therapy. The results presented in this paper is an outcome of extracting the findings of the studies selected from the articles published in international databases including SID, MagIran, IranMedex, IranDoc, Google Scholar, ScienceDirect, Scopus, PubMed and Web of Science (ISI). These databases were thoroughly searched, and the relevant publications were selected based on the plausible keywords, in accordance with the study aims, as follows: prevalence, curcumin, clinical features, cancer. Results: The results are derived based on several clinical studies on curcumin consumption with chemotherapy drugs, highlighting that curcumin increases the effectiveness of chemotherapy and radiotherapy which results in improving patient's survival time, and increasing the expression of anti-metastatic proteins along with reducing their side effects. Conclusion: The comprehensive systematic review presented in this paper confirms that curcumin reduces the side effects of chemotherapy or radiotherapy, resulting in improving patients' quality of life. A number of studies reported that, curcumin has increased patient survival time and decreased tumor markers' level.

A Systematic Review Assessing Clinical Utility of Curcumin with a Focus on Cancer Prevention

“…In light of the myriad of preclinical cancer prevention efficacy data, that there are no studies in the pipeline pursuing meaningful clinical cancer prevention endpoints via RCTs is somewhat disappointing. Mansouri et al [59] recently published a systematic review investigating the effects of curcumin on cancer therapy, collating evidence which suggests that curcuminoids are able to alleviate side effects of chemo-or radio-therapy with concurrent improvement of quality of life. This study, taken together with the evidence presented here, gives some credence to potential beneficial effects of curcumin use in pre-cancerous conditions, and for radio-toxicity prevention in cancer patients.…”

Anti-HIV Activity of Cucurbitacin-D against Cigarette Smoke Condensate-Induced HIV Replication in the U1 Macrophages

“…Various chemodietary agents and nutraceuticals have been shown to be effective against several types of cancers and infectious diseases [17][18][19][20][36][37][38]. Among these, curcumin has been tried as adjuvant therapy in clinical studies to treat various conditions largely for cancers [39][40][41]. Curcumin has also been shown to possess anti-HIV activity [19,20,42].…”

Prolonged Neutropenia and Yellowish Discoloration of the Skin, But Not the Sclera, Following Excessive Turmeric Raw Root Ingestion

“…Curcumin is a yellow pigment that is considered to be the active ingredient of turmeric, a flowering plant of the ginger family with the scientific name of Curcuma longa [ 5 ]. It is best known in its turmeric powder form as a spice used in curry (Figure 5) and is a polyphenol with proven anti-inflammatory properties [ 6 ].…”

“…Curcumin-induced side effects were reported to be restricted to gastrointestinal upset, while hematologic adverse events, like neutropenia, were not encountered. A recent review by Mansouri et al demonstrated that cancer patient survival rates were increased and their chemotherapy symptoms were reduced, depending on the dose of curcumin they received in curcumin-involving CTs of those patients [ 5 ]. Granted, previous studies on curcumin were conducted using regulated curcumin capsules, a study by Bayet-Robert, for example, prescribed a maximum dose of 8 g per day for seven days per each docetaxel treatment cycle, finding 6 g to be the maximal tolerable dose [ 15 ].…”