Efficacy and Safety of Curcuma longa L: Relevant Results for Cancer Treatment

Cancer represents an important public health challenge, and its occurrence has been increasingly observed at human and veterinary medicine. However, despite of the significant results published by the scientific community, the use of medicinal plants for cancer treatment is not properly widespread. Thus, considering that Curcuma longa Linn. has demonstrated an important antitumor activity, the objective of this study was to present the main results of in vitro and in vivo studies. The anticancer activity of turmeric was found by the capability to induce apoptosis, reduce metastatic potential and inhibiting different tumor types of proliferation. In addition, other activities such as immunomodulatory, anti-inflammatory, and the inhibitory effect on modulating proteins of drug resistance are relevant for tumor therapy. Therefore, the results demonstrated by in vitro and in vivo studies showed that C. longa presents important evidence of prophylactic and curative effect for cancer treatment.