A review on antitumor action of amygdalin on various types of cancers

Abstract

Cancer can be described as the abnormal cell division which is uncontrolled and involves the destruction of neighbour cells and tissues. This condition is significantly holds up a fact that 18 million fresh cases were detected during 2018 and the prevalence rate of cancer within 0 to 74 years is 20.2%. WHO stated that 9.6 million deaths worldwide occur by this disease. A complete cure for cancer has not been found yet but in recent years researches are made in the development of site-specific drugs with low cytotoxic effect with high specificity. However, amygdalin which belongs to the nitroside group has a standout feature for the presence of cyanide in it, this cyanide involves in the decomposition of carcinogenic substances and ultimately leads to the blocking of the nutrient source to the tumor cells which inhibits further growth of cancer cells leading to the cancer cell apoptosis. Amygdalin is extensively used in various diseases such as bronchitis, nausea, leprosy, asthma, etc but recently the antitumor property was evident in a large number of in-vitro studies in various types of cancer such as breast, renal, bladder, cervical, prostate by inhibiting the growth of tumor cells, apoptosis, and reducing metastasis of tumor cells. During this review, we look upon the role of amygdalin in a range of diseases and mainly focused on the treatment of various types of cancers.