Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2020 Mar;34(3):568-582.
doi: 10.1002/ptr.6551. Epub 2019 Nov 21.

Flavonoids as anticancer therapies: A systematic review of clinical trials

Ângela Bisol  1 , Paloma Santos de Campos  1 , Marcelo Lazzaron Lamers  1   2
Affiliations

Flavonoids as anticancer therapies: A systematic review of clinical trials

Ângela Bisol et al. Phytother Res. 2020 Mar.

Abstract

Flavonoids have been proposed as potential chemotherapeutic agents because they are toxic against cancer cells but not harmful to healthy cells. This systematic review analyzed flavonoid effectiveness in human cancer chemotherapy. Overall, 22 phase II and 1 phase III clinical trials (PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science) that used flavonoids as a single agent or combined with other therapeutics against hematopoietic/lymphoid or solid cancer published by January 2019 were selected for analysis. Flavopiridol was the most commonly used flavonoid (at a dose of 50-mg/m2 IV) for all tumor types. Aside from the relatively low rate of complete response (CR) or partial response (PR) with any administration protocol, flavonoids showed higher positive outcomes for hematopoietic and lymphoid tissues (140 patients with CR and 88 with PR among 615 patients in 11 trials) than for solid tumors (4 patients with CR and 21 with PR among 525 patients in 12 trials). However, because of the high variety in administration schedule, more studies are needed to further understand how flavonoids can promote positive outcomes for cancer patients.

Keywords: chemotherapy; flavopiridol; hematopoietic tumors; polyphenols; solid tumor.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

REFERENCES

    1. Agullo, G., Gamet-Payrastre, L., Fernandez, Y., Anciaux, N., Demigne, C., & Remesy, C. (1996). "Comparative effects of flavonoids on the growth, viability and metabolism of a colonic adenocarcinoma cell line (HT29 cells)." (2005). Cancer Lett, 105(1), 61-70. https://doi.org/10.1016/0304-3835(96)04262-0
    1. Abbaszadeh, H., Keikhaei, B., & Mottaghi, S. (2019). A review of molecular mechanism sinvolved in anticancer and antiangiogenic effects of natural polyphenolic compounds. Phytotherapy Research., 33, 2002-2014. https://doi.org/10.1002/ptr.6403
    1. Aklilu, M., Kindler, H. L., Donehower, R. C., Mani, S., & Vokes, E. E. (2003). Phase II study of flavopiridol in patients with advanced colorectal cancer. Ann Oncol, 14(8), 1270-1273. https://doi.org/10.1093/annonc/mdg343
    1. Amorati, R., & Valgimigli, L. (2012). Modulation of the antioxidant activity of phenols by non-covalent interactions. Org Biomol Chem, 10(21), 4147-4158.
    1. Barthelman, M., Bair, W. B. 3rd, Stickland, K. K., Chen, W., Timmermann, B. N., Valcic, S., … Bowden, G. T. (1998). (-)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate inhibition of ultraviolet B-induced AP-1 activity. Carcinogenesis, 19(12), 2201-2204. https://doi.org/10.1093/carcin/19.12.2201

Publication types

MeSH terms