Abstract
Plant natural products are a plethora of diverse and complex molecules produced by the plant secondary metabolism. Among these, many can reserve beneficial or curative properties when employed to treat human diseases. Even in cancer, they can be successfully used and indeed numerous phytochemicals exert antineoplastic activity. The most common molecules derived from plants and used in the fight against cancer are polyphenols, i.e., quercetin, genistein, resveratrol, curcumin, etc. Despite valuable data especially in preclinical models on such compounds, few of them are currently used in the medical practice. Also, in adrenocortical tumors (ACT), phytochemicals are scarcely or not at all used. This work summarizes the available research on phytochemicals used against ACT and adrenocortical cancer, a very rare disease with poor prognosis and high metastatic potential, and wants to contribute to stimulate preclinical and clinical research to find new therapeutic strategies among the overabundance of biomolecules produced by the plant kingdom.
Highlights
Plant natural products are a plethora of diverse and complex molecules produced by the plant secondary metabolism
In adrenocortical tumors (ACT), phytochemicals are scarcely or not at all used. is work summarizes the available research on phytochemicals used against ACT and adrenocortical cancer, a very rare disease with poor prognosis and high metastatic potential, and wants to contribute to stimulate preclinical and clinical research to find new therapeutic strategies among the overabundance of biomolecules produced by the plant kingdom
Plant natural products play a key role in different human diseases, including cancer. ere are numerous research studies that reported the efficacy and safety of phytochemicals and about one-quarter of drugs derive from the plant kingdom [2, 3]
Summary
Adrenocortical tumors (ACT) are adrenal masses of different sizes, mainly benign in nature and discovered incidentally (so-called “incidentaloma”) or due to signs and symptoms of hormonal secretion or compression. e prevalent etiology of adrenocortical tumors is nonfunctioning adrenocortical adenomas, which accounts for about 80% of cases [7]. Due to the low rate of aldosterone secretion, recent guidelines recommend the use of aldosterone/renin ratio to exclude primary aldosteronism only in patients with adrenal tumors and concomitant hypertension or unexplained hypokalemia [7]. Even patients with a single adrenal mass at imaging technique could have bilateral aldosterone secretion [26]. E American ones published in 2009 recommend that silent adrenocortical tumors
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