Elucidation of role of an antioxidant herbal product in cancer therapy

Abstract

Cancer is a population of continuously dividing cells where a normal cell loses its homeostasis by activating a plethora of genes involved in survival, cell proliferation, evasion, metastasis, and angiogenesis. It is the second deadly disease, with an estimated 9.6 million deaths worldwide in 2018 (WHO, 2018).Carcinogenesis progresses through different stages: initiation, promotion, and progression, and the available primary treatment modalities are surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. However, these modalities produce certain side-effects/after-effects, which hamper the clinical outcome following treatment. These therapeutic procedures induce immunosuppression, which could further compromise the patient s health, resulting in recurrence, resistance, and a decrease in survival rate due to persistent chronic inflammation. To address these issues, it is of paramount importance to create a holistic approach for cancer treatment, which would help maintain homeostasis and improve quality of life. Traditional medicines / Herbal medicinal compounds / Natural products are considered useful as complementary and alternative (CAMs) or integrative mode of therapy for cancer. A considerable amount of studies have reported the beneficial effects of such an approach. However, such an approach lacks scientific validation, like drug discovery programs that produce synthetic drugs for various clinical conditions, cancer included. The work presented here involves investigating SR033 (an FSSAI approved: 11216302000033 polyherbal formulation; applied for the patent and AYUSH license) in terms of its efficacy, its ability to reverse drug resistance, its role in maintaining homeostasis, and its role in mitigating chemo-induced inflammation and EMT. Results obtained in this work indicate SR033 to be a strong candidate to be prescribed along with a standard chemotherapy regimen. It also exerts chemopreventive activity, as observed in our in-vivo studies. newline