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Controlling metastatic cancer: the role of phytochemicals in cell signaling

  • Review – Cancer Research
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Journal of Cancer Research and Clinical Oncology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose

Cancer is a serious health issue and a leading cause of death worldwide. Most of the cancer patients (approximately 90%) do not die from the consequences of the primary tumor development, but due to a heavily treatable metastatic invasion. During the lengthy multistep process of carcinogenesis, there are a lot of opportunities available to reverse or slow down the tissue invasion or the process of tumor metastasis formation.

Results

Current research has brought many promising results from anti-metastatic experimental studies, and has shown that chemoprevention by natural or semisynthetic phytochemicals with plethora of biological activities could be one of the potentially effective options in the fight against this problem. However, there is a lack of clinical trials to confirm these findings. In this review, we focused on summarization and discussion of the general features of metastatic cancer, and recent preclinical and clinical studies dealing with anti-metastatic potential of various plant-derived compounds.

Conclusions

Based on our findings, we can conclude and confirm our hypothesis that phytochemicals with pleiotropic anticancer effects can be very useful in retarding and/or reversing the metastasis process, and can also be used to prevent tissue invasion and metastases. But, further studies in this area are certainly necessary and desirable.

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Funding

This work was supported by the Scientific Grant Agency of the Ministry of Education of the Slovak Republic under the contracts no. VEGA 1/0136/19 and 1/0124/17 and the Slovak Research and Development Agency under the contract no. APVV-16-0021. This work was financially supported by Government of Russian Federation, Grant 08-08.

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Correspondence to Peter Kubatka or Peter Kruzliak.

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The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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No experiments have been performed including patients and/or animals.

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Patients have not been involved in the study.

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Kapinova, A., Kubatka, P., Liskova, A. et al. Controlling metastatic cancer: the role of phytochemicals in cell signaling. J Cancer Res Clin Oncol 145, 1087–1109 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-019-02892-5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00432-019-02892-5

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