Therapeutic potential of Curcuma oil and its terpenoids in gynecological cancers

Background: Gynecological cancers encompass all uncontrolled and aberrant cell growth in the female repro-ductive system, therapeutic interventions are constantly evolving, but there is still a high death rate, significant side effects and medication resistance, making the task of treatment challenging and complex. The essential oil extracted from the rhizome of Curcuma longa is a promising natural drug, which has excellent biological activity on cancer cells and is to be developed as a new type of anti-gynecological tumor therapeutic agent.Purpose: To systematically summarize the available evidence for the efficacy of Curcuma oil and its terpenoids (beta-elemene, curcumol, furanodiene, and germacrone) in gynecological cancers, primarily malignancies of the reproductive system, involving ovarian, cervical, and endometrial cancers, explain the underlying mechanisms of preventing and treating gynecological cancers, and assess the shortcomings of existing work.Results: Through several signaling channels, Curcuma oil and its terpenoids can not only stop the growth of ovarian cancer, cervical cancer, and endometrial cancer cells, limit the formation of tumors, but also raise the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs and improve the quality of life for patients.Conclusion: It provides a preclinical basis for the efficacy of Curcuma oil as a broad-spectrum anti-tumor agent for the prevention and treatment of gynecological cancers. Even so, further efforts are still needed to improve the bioavailability of Curcuma oil and upgrade related experiments.

Automated summary

This article systematically summarizes the efficacy of Curcuma oil and its terpenoids (beta-elemene, curcumol, furanodiene, and germacrone) in gynecological cancers, primarily malignancies of the reproductive system, involving ovarian, cervical, and endometrial cancers. The underlying mechanisms of preventing and treating gynecological cancers are explained, and the shortcomings of existing work are assessed. The results show that Curcuma oil and its terpenoids can not only stop the growth of cancer cells and limit tumor formation but also improve the effectiveness of chemotherapy drugs and the quality of life for patients. Therefore, Curcuma oil has potential as a broad-spectrum anti-tumor agent for the prevention and treatment of gynecological cancers.