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

• Published in: BMC cancer 2020-08, Vol.20 (1), p.791-11, Article 791
• Main Authors: Mansouri, Kamran, Rasoulpoor, Shna, Daneshkhah, Alireza, Abolfathi, Soroush, Salari, Nader, Mohammadi, Masoud, Rasoulpoor, Shabnam, Shabani, Shervin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Angiogenesis; Antimitotic agents; Antineoplastic agents; Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols - pharmacology; Antineoplastic Combined Chemotherapy Protocols - therapeutic use; Cancer; Cancer therapies; Carcinogenesis; Cell cycle; Cell growth; Cell Survival - drug effects; Chemoradiotherapy - adverse effects; Chemotherapy; Clinical feature; Curcumin; Curcumin - pharmacology; Curcumin - therapeutic use; Cytokines; Developing countries; Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions - etiology; Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions - prevention & control; Flavonoids; Health aspects; Humans; Industrialized nations; Inflammation - drug therapy; Inflammation - immunology; Inflammation - pathology; Kinases; LDCs; Medical research; Medicine, Experimental; Metastases; Neoplasms - blood supply; Neoplasms - immunology; Neoplasms - pathology; Neoplasms - therapy; Neovascularization, Pathologic - drug therapy; Neovascularization, Pathologic - pathology; Oxidative Stress - drug effects; Prevalence; Prevention; Quality of Life; Radiation Injuries - etiology; Radiation Injuries - prevention & control; Radiation therapy; Side effects; Survival; Systematic review; Tumor markers; Tumors
• ISSN: 1471-2407; 1471-2407
• DOI: 10.1186/s12885-020-07256-8

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. 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. 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. 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.