Anticancer effects of Chinese herbal medicines on esophageal carcinoma: a literature research-based review

摘要

This article reviews the anticancer effects of Chinese herbal medicines on esophageal carcinoma recent years in terms of different mechanisms, providing valuable information for the development of anticancer drugs for esophageal carcinoma. Esophageal carcinoma is one of the most common malignant tumors worldwide, with China the hardest hit area accounts for nearly 50 percent of the morbidity and mortality each year. Despite the deepening of the research and treatment of esophageal carcinoma, its five-year survival rate is still less than 20%, partly because of the formation of drug resistance and after-effects with conventional treatment. Recent years, accumulating evidence suggests that natural medicines have remarkable effects on the aspect of anticancer without or with mild side effects, therefore, the anticancer drugs development on esophageal carcinoma has transitioned from chemical synthesis to natural medicines. China has the tradition of using Chinese herbal medicines for various diseases curing for thousands of years and has been proved to be effective, including esophageal carcinoma. With almost 10,000 Chinese herbal medicines have been excavated, the studies on Chinese herbal medicines for esophageal carcinoma is growing increasingly. Every Chinese herbal medicine is comprised of kinds of chemical compositions, exerts anticancer effect by targeting multiple targets via multiple signaling pathways with lower incidence rate of drug resistance and almost no side effects, which has caught increasingly attention. In this review, we summarized some monomers, extracts and composite of CHMs with anticancer activity on esophageal carcinoma by inhibiting proliferation, anti-metastasis, et al., and elaborate their mechanisms of action, hoping this will be valuable for esophageal carcinoma treatment and drug development.