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Review
. 2023 May 31;24(11):9539.
doi: 10.3390/ijms24119539.

Opportunities and Challenges of Kava in Lung Cancer Prevention

Breanne Freeman  1 , Jessica Mamallapalli  1 , Tengfei Bian  1 , Kayleigh Ballas  1 , Allison Lynch  1 , Alexander Scala  1 , Zhiguang Huo  2 , Kristianna M Fredenburg  3 , Adriaan W Bruijnzeel  4 , Carolyn J Baglole  5 , Junxuan Lu  6 , Ramzi G Salloum  7 , John Malaty  8 , Chengguo Xing  1
Affiliations
Review

Opportunities and Challenges of Kava in Lung Cancer Prevention

Breanne Freeman et al. Int J Mol Sci. .

Abstract

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer-related deaths due to its high incidence, late diagnosis, and limited success in clinical treatment. Prevention therefore is critical to help improve lung cancer management. Although tobacco control and tobacco cessation are effective strategies for lung cancer prevention, the numbers of current and former smokers in the USA and globally are not expected to decrease significantly in the near future. Chemoprevention and interception are needed to help high-risk individuals reduce their lung cancer risk or delay lung cancer development. This article will review the epidemiological data, pre-clinical animal data, and limited clinical data that support the potential of kava in reducing human lung cancer risk via its holistic polypharmacological effects. To facilitate its future clinical translation, advanced knowledge is needed with respect to its mechanisms of action and the development of mechanism-based non-invasive biomarkers in addition to safety and efficacy in more clinically relevant animal models.

Keywords: kava; lung cancer prevention; lung carcinogenesis; mechanism-based non-invasive biomarkers; risk factors; tobacco smoke.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Risk factors for lung cancer development.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Structures of the six major kavalactones and the three flavokavains in kava.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Temporal effects of DHM on NNK-induced lung DNA damage and tumors (data reformatted from references). One-way ANOVA to compare means among NNK and NNK + DHM timepoints. Dunnett test to compare the means between NNK and a specific NNK + DHM timepoint. **: p < 0.01; ****: p < 0.0001.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Potential points of lung carcinogenesis prevention through the use of kava.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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