Phytochemicals intended for anticancer effects at preclinical levels to clinical practice: Assessment of formulations at nanoscale for non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) therapy

Over the past few decades, many of the phytochemicals have been shown to possess extraordinary anticancer effects, clinical tested, approved as drugs, and currently in use. A considerable number of phytochemicals either as a single-agent or combined with existing anticancer drugs at pre-clinical and clinical levels have been evaluated to date. However, the clinical trials on phytochemical evaluations against the world's top-ranked cancer, NSCLC, was found to be a very little. Some of the phytochemicals that showed significant anticancer activity against NSCLC in vitro and/or in vivo at the preclinical levels are highlighted in this review article. There are several impediments such as poor solubility, poor bioavailability, low stability, a requirement of high doses, safety and toxicity that limits the wide-spread use of phytochemicals in clinical oncology. Nanotherapeutic systems can help to overcome the aforementioned issues and wide open the gates to focus on phyto-oncotherapy, in particular NSCLC. The current review aims to summarize the importance of phytochemicals as anticancer agents, with a special mention on nano-formulations to treat non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC).