Medicinal Plants and Cancer Therapy and Chemoprevention

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Cancer is still the second-leading cause of death in industrialized countries. The development of resistance to anticancer drugs and the severe side effects of current drugs prevent treatment with drug doses high enough for long-lasting remissions or sustainable cures. There have been unprecedented efforts to uncover new treatments and the knowledge of cancer has been tremendously increasing for the past few decades. Medicinal plants are a fertile ground to be used as phytotherapy and to isolate phytochemicals with interesting pharmacological features. Medicinal plants are being increasingly documented as useful consistent treatments for cancer. A large volume of clinical studies have reported the beneficial effects of herbal medicines on the survival, immune modulation, and quality of life (QOL) of cancer patients when these herbal medicines are used in combination with conventional therapeutics. This book chapter should provide useful technological support for the evidence-based application of herbal medicines in cancer therapy. Natural products have always been a major source of drug development in cancer therapy.