Exploring the Potential of Aromatherapy as an Adjuvant Therapy in Cancer and its Complications: A Comprehensive Update.

BACKGROUND: Aromatherapy is a traditional practice of employing essential oils for the therapeutic purposes, currently headed under the category of complementary and adjuvant medicine. OBJECTIVE: The aim of this review article is to summarize the potential health benefits of aromatic essential oil from traditional times till the present. It also proposed some mechanisms which can be utilized as basis for using aromatherapy in cancer and cancer linked complications. METHODS: To find out the relevant and authentic data, several search engines like Science direct, Pubmed, research gate, etc. were thoroughly checked by inserting key words like aromatherapy, complementary, adjuvant therapy etc. to collect the relevant material in context of article. Also, the chemical components of essential oil were classified based on the presence of functional groups, which are further explored for their cytotoxic potential. RESULTS: The result depicted the anti-cancer potential of chemical constituents of essential oil against different types of cancer. Moreover, the essential oils show promising anti-inflammatory, anti-microbial, anti-oxidant and anti-mutagenic potential in several studies, which collectively can form the basis for initiation of its anti-cancer utility. CONCLUSION: Aromatherapy can serve as adjuvant economic therapy in cancer after the standardization of protocol.