Author(s): Sushma Kainsa, Praveen Kumar, Poonam Rani
Cancer is a major public health burden in both developed and developing countries. It is the second largest common disease spread world-wide. Traditional medicines or herbal formulations can serve as the source of potential new drugs, so that initial research focuses on the active constituent of the plants. The development of novel plant derived natural products and their analogs for anticancer activity are going day by day. A number of promising agents of medicinal plants are used in clinical and preclinical development. Several anticancer agents including taxol, vinblastine, vincristine, camptothecin derivatives, topotecan and irinotecan, etoposide etc. derived from plants are in clinical use all over world.