Natural Products in Chemo- or Hormone Therapy Volume II

Dear Colleagues,

Chemo- and hormone therapy represent the two principal treatments for advanced stages of most types of cancer. However, the clinical success of chemo- and hormone therapeutics is commonly limited by intrinsic or acquired drug resistance, as well as their side effects. Due to the complexity and heterogeneity of cancer genetics, it may be necessary to target multiple signaling pathways within a cancer in order to achieve durable control over it. Given that chemo- and hormone therapy drugs typically have sole or few molecular targets, combinations of these drugs have been widely tested. Many have shown encouraging outcomes in terms of enhancing therapeutic effects. Nevertheless, increased toxicity associated with drug–drug combinations is a considerable challenge.

Many natural products, particularly phytochemicals, have received increasing interest for their potential to be non-toxic anticancer agents. Natural products are typically able to target multiple signaling molecules and cellular events, promising systemic and durable control of cancer. However, the potency of their targeting activities is usually moderate, as indicated by the relatively high effectiveness of doses as compared to that of drugs. In addition, the bioavailability of most natural compounds is relatively low. As a result, their effective doses as needed in vitro can barely be achieved in vivo via oral consumption at safe dose levels.

A combination of natural compounds with chemo- and/or hormone therapy seems to be a promising strategy to overcome the disadvantages of both treatments to achieve a synergistic effect, which has indeed been observed in many previous preclinical studies. This Special Issue aims to facilitate the advancement of this research area by broadcasting the latest findings from mechanistic studies, translational studies, and clinical trial studies. Both research and review articles will be considered.

Dr. Piwen Wang
Guest Editor

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Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

• natural compounds
• chemotherapy
• hormone therapy
• cancer
• phytochemicals
• combination