Anticancer Potential of Artemisinin Derivatives Containing Fluorine Atoms

Abstract

Artemisinin and its derivatives were widely used in treatment of malaria in last decades years. As a natural compound extracted from Chinese herb Artemisia annua, artemisinin and its derivatives presented high cytotoxicity to tumor cell and low toxicity to human body. If this great medicine can be used in the treatment of other disease, a new treatment will be found. Many researches were carried out to confirm these compounds can be used as a new anticancer agent. Artemisinin and its derivatives presented cytotoxicity to tumor cells were confirmed by many experiments. Besides some common derivatives which were widely used in the malaria therapy, some new artemisinin derivatives were synthesized and evaluated whether these compounds can become potential anticancer drug. There is research carried out by Shu Li and others synthesized a new type of artemisinin derivatives, artemisinin derivatives containing fluorine atoms, and evaluated these new compound’s cytotoxicity to tumor cells. In this review paper, the anticancer activity of artemisinin derivatives containing fluorine atoms were introduced and its cytotoxicity against tumor cells were shown. Then, the anticancer ability of artemisinin containing fluorine atoms and other common artemisinin derivatives: dihydroartemisinin and artesunate were compared. Finally, traditional treatment of cancer, such as chemotherapy and radiotherapy were introduced in this paper. By comparing artemisinin derivatives with traditional treatment of cancer, the big cancer-fighting potential for artemisinin and its derivatives should be see and further investigated. A new series of artemisinin derivatives, compounds containing fluorine atoms have anticancer ability too. Results obtained by literature research and read show artemisinin containing fluorine atoms may be a great potential anticancer drug but still need more exploration and practice like other artemisinin derivatives.