Natural Products in Clinical Trials

Abstract

Herbal medicines are complementary and alternative medicine that is used not only in the treatment of cancer and cancer-related conditions, but also to improve the side effects of anticancer therapies. The use of so‐called alternative medicine has increased over the past 10 years, and the use of herbal preparations in clinical trials are growing. Complementary therapies are used by a large number of patients with cancer, particularly those with progressive disease or who have undergone multiple treatments. In 1998, spurred by rising interest in the use of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) for cancer patients, the National Cancer Institute (NCI) created the Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine (OCCAM) and has supported OCCAM with more than $100 million annually since 2005. In the clinical trials official website there are 540 studies were found to be held by extracts whereas 78 studies were found to be held by CAM and 49 studies with marine products by December 2019. The green tea, grape seed, pomegranate, wheat germ, ginger, ginseng root, broccoli sprout, green coffee, Red Reishi, Iscador Q, mistletoe were the most common herbal extracts used in Randomized Clinical Trials (RCT). Curcumin, resveratrol, epigallocathechin gallate, osthole, fiscetin are the samples which are the most common used natural products in RCTs in several cancer types. Prostate, colorectal, breast, lung, head and neck cancers were the most common cancer types where these CAM and natural products were used in RCTs. Increasingly, many researchers have focused their efforts on the potential use of CAMs and natural products and have reevaluated earlier epidemiologic data and initiated clinical trials to determine their potential efficacy as cancer therapy however the pharmacokinetic parameters of these products still need to be widely evaluated by identifying more clinical evidence to be able to use in patients.