Nano-natural Products as Anticancer Agents

Abstract

Cancer is one of the noxious diseases and is a major public health problem worldwide. The clinical management of cancer involves various approaches, but the most common one is chemotherapy. Natural products such as paclitaxel, camptothecin, podophyllotoxin, etc. have been used as major sources of anticancer drugs in many clinical trials. In spite of availability of these drugs for treatment of cancer, failure in chemotherapy is very common due to dose-limited toxicities and occurrence of drug resistance. In this regard, the nano-delivery systems directly target and deliver the selective drug to the cancerous sites and increase the permeability and intracellular accretion of anticancer drugs. Thus, the aim of this chapter is to focus on the application of nanotechnology to develop nano-natural products for effective treatment of cancer.