Anticancer Potential of Artemisinin and Its Derivatives

Abstract

Chinese scientist Tu Youyou discovered artemisinin in the 1970s, and she extracted it from Artemisia annua. The greatest contribution of artemisinin is to the treatment of malaria, and in 2015, Tu Youyou received the Nobel Prize in Medicine for her discovery. This article presents recent studies showing that artemisinin and its derivatives have some anti-cancer effects in addition to treating malaria. Cancer, the disease with the highest mortality rate, has been the subject of human efforts to find ways to overcome it. Artemisinin was already found to slow down the growth of tumor cells through various mechanisms, such as by preventing cell invasion, promoting apoptosis, causing cell cycle arrest, and controlling the tumor microenvironment, but further studies are needed to demonstrate its better efficacy and safety. This article first describes the basic structure and physical and chemical properties of artemisinin, then describes the various anticancer mechanisms of artemisinin and its derivatives, as well as the clinical trials that have been completed for the study and proof of these mechanisms, and finally describes the anticancer effects of artemisinin in combination with other drugs.