Curcumin AntiCancer Studies in Pancreatic Cancer

Abstract

Pancreatic cancer (PC) is one of the deadliest cancers worldwide. Surgical resection remains the only curative therapeutic treatment for this disease, although only the minority of patients can be resected due to late diagnosis. Systemic gemcitabine-based chemotherapy plus nab-paclitaxel are used as the gold-standard therapy for patients with advanced PC; although this treatment is associated with a better overall survival compared to the old treatment, many side effects and poor results are still present. Therefore, new alternative therapies have been considered for treatment of advanced PC. Several preclinical studies have demonstrated that curcumin, a naturally occurring polyphenolic compound, has anticancer effects against different types of cancer, including PC, by modulating many molecular targets. Regarding PC, in vitro studies have shown potent cytotoxic effects of curcumin on different PC cell lines including MiaPaCa-2, Panc-1, AsPC-1, and BxPC-3. In addition, in vivo studies on PC models have shown that the anti-proliferative effects of curcumin are caused by the inhibition of oxidative stress and angiogenesis and are due to the induction of apoptosis. On the basis of these results, several researchers tested the anticancer effects of curcumin in clinical trials, trying to overcome the poor bioavailability of this agent by developing new bioavailable forms of curcumin. In this article, we review the results of pre-clinical and clinical studies on the effects of curcumin in the treatment of PC.

Curcumin sensitizes human gastric cancer cells to 5-fluorouracil through inhibition of the NFκB survival-signaling pathway

“…Curcumin has long been known to act as a therapeutic or preventive agent for the treatment of several major human cancers involved in a variety of antitumor cellular processes 28,29. It has been found that curcumin by oral administration had beneficial effects on several types of premalignant lesions.…”

Analysis of Brazilian Plant Extracts as Potential Source of Antioxidant Natural Products Using Bench-Top Assays

“…Curcumin, a diarylheptanoid compound, has shown to be effective against some types of cancer due to its antiproliferative effect caused by inhibiting angiogenesis and by inducing apoptosis, in vitro. 1 Also, curcumin was shown to have neuroprotective properties that may postpone or even prevent diseases as Alzheimer's, due ti its antiinflammatory and antioxidant properties. 2 Recent studies described the screening of Brazilian plant extracts for the antioxidant activity, as was made with six plant extracts aiming their antioxidant and photoprotective activity, which showed that the extract from Dalbergia monetaria is a potentially source of new antioxidants to be used in photoprotective formulations.…”

Oxidative Stress: A New Target for Pancreatic Cancer Prognosis and Treatment

“…The administration of 8 g of curcumin orally had antitumor activity in this kind of patient [104,105]. However, the plasma curcumin levels remain low despite high administration doses.…”