Contact Dr. Lu for information about cancer treatments。聯繫盧博士,獲取有關癌症治療資訊。
Phytotherapy and Nutritional Supplements on Breast Cancer 用于乳腺癌治疗的植物疗法和营养补充剂
Contact Dr. Lu for information about cancer treatments。聯繫盧博士,獲取有關癌症治療資訊。
BioMed Research International Volume 2017 (2017), Article ID 7207983, 42 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2017/7207983
Phytotherapy and Nutritional Supplements on Breast Cancer
1Fernando Pessoa Energy, Environment, and Health Research Unit/Biomedical Research Center (FP-ENAS/CEBIMED), Faculty of Health Sciences, Fernando Pessoa University, Porto, Portugal
2EMAC (School of Alternative and Complementary Medicines), Porto, Portugal
Correspondence should be addressed to C. M. Lopes and R. Oliveira
Received 5 April 2017; Revised 14 June 2017; Accepted 18 June 2017; Published 6 August 2017
Academic Editor: Gail B. Mahady
Copyright © 2017 C. M. Lopes et al. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Abstract
Breast cancer is the most frequent type of nonskin malignancy among women worldwide. In general, conventional cancer treatment options (i.e., surgery, radiotherapy, chemotherapy, biological therapy, and hormone therapy) are not completely effective. Recurrence and other pathologic situations are still an issue in breast cancer patients due to side effects, toxicity of drugs in normal cells, and aggressive behaviour of the tumours. From this point of view, breast cancer therapy and adjuvant methods represent a promising and challenging field for researchers. In the last few years, the use of some types of complementary medicines by women with a history of breast cancer has significantly increased such as phytotherapeutic products and nutritional supplements. Despite this, the use of such approaches in oncologic processes may be problematic and patient’s health risks can arise such as interference with the efficacy of standard cancer treatment. The present review gives an overview of the most usual phytotherapeutic products and nutritional supplements with application in breast cancer patients as adjuvant approach. Regardless of the contradictory results of scientific evidence, we demonstrated the need to perform additional investigation, mainly well-designed clinical trials in order to establish correlations and allow for further validated outcomes concerning the efficacy, safety, and clinical evidence-based recommendation of these products.