BackgroundPlants that are used as traditional medicine represent a relevant pool for selecting plant candidates that may have anticancer properties. In this study, the ethnomedicinal approach was used to select several medicinal plants native to Nigeria, on the basis of their local or traditional uses. The collected plants were then evaluated for cytoxicity.MethodsThe antitumor activity of methanolic extracts obtained from 24 of the selected plants, were evaluated in vitro on five human cancer cell lines.ResultsResults obtained from the plants screened indicate that 18 plant extracts of folk medicine exhibited promising cytotoxic activity against human carcinoma cell lines. Erythrophleum suaveolens (Guill. & Perr.) Brenan was found to demonstrate potent anti-cancer activity in this study exhibiting IC50 = 0.2-1.3 μg/ml.ConclusionsBased on the significantly potent activity of some plants extracts reported here, further studies aimed at mechanism elucidation and bio-guided isolation of active anticancer compounds is currently underway.