Medicinal Plants as Potential Source of Anticancer Agents: A Review

Cancer is a major public health burden in both developed and developing countries. Anticancer activity is the effect of natural and synthetic or biological and chemical agents to reverse, suppress or prevent carcinogenic progression. Several synthetic agents are used to cure the disease but they have their toxicity and hence the research is going on to investigate the plant derived chemotherapeutic agents. Therefore an attempt has been made to review some medicinal plants having anticancer properties. In this review, anticancer medicinal plants of Indian origin belonging to various families are reported along with detailed information. All these plants are potential candidates for advanced studies since they are showing good anticancer activity. The present paper is a comprehensive review of different literature sources. It will be helpful to explore the medicinal value of the plants against the cancer and for the new drug discovery from them for the researchers and scientists around the world