Cancer is a complex disease condition affecting millions of people all over the world. Chemotherapy and synthetic drugs lack specificity and targeted efficacy leading to drastic side effects. For thousands of years humans have been using plants to treat various diseases. Plant derived anticancer drugs are promising agents approved worldwide (approximately twothird of anticancer drugs). Many plants with active anticancer agents are identified which has high affinity to a biological target and their potency to inhibit the cancer metastasis is studied extensively. This review mainly enlists medicinal plants of whose active component with anticancer potential have been identified and applied in research and preclinical trials. The medicinal plants whose active components are yet to be identified but crude extracts exhibits cytotoxic activity against almost most of the human cancer cell lines. At last on the molecular mechanism of bioactive compounds of twelve medicinal plants which are widely used to cure different types of cancer. Knowledge of these indigenous anticancer plants forms the platform for new, safe and effective drug development.
Anticancer agents, cancer, medicinal plants, herbs
