Progress on the Study of the Anti-Tumor Effect of Emodin

Abstract

Cancer is a disease caused by the loss of normal cell regulation and excessive proliferation. At present, there are a lot of anticancer drugs, but most of them are not ideal, with sereve side effects. Besides, during the treatment, the patients feel very bad, and they are always in great pain. Emodin is a natural anthraquinone derivative found in a variety of herbal preparations. Many studies have shown that emodin has a significant therapeutic effect on lung cancer, liver cancer, breast cancer, and so on. After reviewing a large amount of literatures, this paper summarizes the research progresses of emodin anticancer in the past five years, in order to provide theoretical basis for further development and utilization of emodin and its metabolites.