Chemopreventive Strategies in Herbal Medicine Practice: Current Aspects, Challenges, Prospects, and Sustainable Future Outlook

Cancer is one of the high-profile diseases and is responsible for millions of deaths worldwide every year. Even though there are many therapeutic strategies (natural and chemical), many issue have been still unresolved in order to advance cancer therapy. For this, a lot of efforts are being put forwarded by oncology research to find new and efficient anticancer therapeutical strategies that can overcome the discomfort caused by conventional methods. Many of the chemically derived drugs and anticancer treatments already exist, but are known to have toxic effects. Hence, the demand for naturally derived anticancer agents is used as an alternative for which nature remains the main supplier, especially plants. Many plant-derived secondary metabolites, like alkaloids, brassinosteroids, flavonoids, polyphenols, and phytosterols, have potential as anticancer agents, unaided or in formulations, and have antioxidant activity, apoptosis induction, cancer cell line inhibition and cytotoxicity, multitarget specificity, etc. Many of these plant-derived drugs preexist in research and have been cleared for clinical trials, mostly in phases I–III. This chapter provides a thorough overview of the therapeutic drugs derived from plants and also advances a clinical assessment of recently investigated natural compounds in terms of their anticancer modes of action. Besides, some new technologies like nanococheleates, nanoparticles, and nanoliposomes are being used in the administration of anticancer therapies for target specificity. These plant-derived anticancer agents are in high demand as they are efficient inhibitors of cancer cells lines; hence, their exploration needs to be managed to be sustainable. These have the potential to minimize the harmful effects typically associated with conventional medicines. Unlike certain synthetic drugs, herbal medicines being derived from plant sources and may possess compounds that have a lower risk of toxicity or adverse reactions. Finally, the current review describes an in-depth analysis of the most innovative advances of several efficient therapeutic natural agents for the encapsulation and target specificity in basic and applied cancer research.