Noscapine as Anticancer Agent & Its Role in Ovarian Cancer

Cancer is a public health problem accounting for an estimated 9.6 million deaths worldwide, according to the latest WHO report, mainly affecting low-middle income countries. Noscapine (narcotize), a non-toxic benzylisoquinoline alkaloid derived from opium poppy, is commonly used as a cough suppressant in humans and exhibited various activities against a variety of cancers with unclear mechanism of action. Unlike other alkaloids obtained from opium poppy, noscapine is not sleep-inducing, hypnotic drug, rendering it as non-addictive drug and therefore used as antimitotic & antitussive drug around the world, can be orally consumed. Ovarian Cancer is one of the common causes of gynecologic cancer affecting women around the world. The main reason for treatment failure and mortality is the drug resistance against DDP (cisplatin), which has emerged the use of Noscapine against drug-resistant ovarian cancer cell line SKOV3/DDP by activation of apoptosis. Herein, we will describe noscapine chemically; its medicinal utility and pharmacological history behind the noscapine family of compounds then follow its journey for treating ovarian cancer (Figure 1).