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Current Progress of Phytomedicine in Glioblastoma Therapy

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Summary

Glioblastoma multiforme, an intrusive brain cancer, has the lowest survival rate of all brain cancers. The chemotherapy utilized to prevent their proliferation and propagation is limited due to modulation of complex cancer signalling pathways. These complex pathways provide infiltrative and drug evading properties leading to the development of chemotherapy resistance. Therefore, the development and discovery of such interventions or therapies that can bypass all these resistive barriers to ameliorate glioma prognosis and survival is of profound importance. Medicinal plants are comprised of an exorbitant range of phytochemicals that have the broad-spectrum capability to target intrusive brain cancers, modulate anti-cancer pathways and immunological responses to facilitate their eradication, and induce apoptosis. These phytocompounds also interfere with several oncogenic proteins that promote cancer invasiveness and metastasis, chemotherapy resistance and angiogenesis. These plants are extremely vital for promising anti-glioma therapy to avert glioma proliferation and recurrence. In this review, we acquired recent literature on medicinal plants whose extracts/bioactive ingredients are newly exploited in glioma therapeutics, and also highlighted their mode of action and pharmacological profile.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre of Biotechnology and Microbiology, University of Peshawar, Peshawar, 25120, Pakistan

    Fahad Hassan Shah, Syed Turab Ali Shah, Abid Ali Khan & Bashir Ahmad

  2. Department of Pharmacy, The University of Lahore, Islamabad Campus, Islamabad, 45800, Pakistan

    Saad Salman

  3. Islamia College University Peshawar, Peshawar, 25000, Pakistan

    Jawaria Idrees & Fariha Idrees

Authors
  1. Fahad Hassan Shah
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  2. Saad Salman
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  3. Jawaria Idrees
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  4. Fariha Idrees
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  5. Syed Turab Ali Shah
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  6. Abid Ali Khan
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  7. Bashir Ahmad
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Correspondence to Fahad Hassan Shah.

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Shah, F.H., Salman, S., Idrees, J. et al. Current Progress of Phytomedicine in Glioblastoma Therapy. CURR MED SCI 40, 1067–1074 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11596-020-2288-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11596-020-2288-8

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