An appraisal of documented medicinal plants used for the treatment of cancer in Africa over a twenty-year period (1998-2018)

Human is bedevilled with different diseases both communicable
and non-communicable but of interest is cancer
because of the daily increasing mortality. Cancer has been
threatening the global population for many decades with
increasing advancement on different treatment regimen
especially using the conventional method which involves
chemotherapy, radiation therapy, surgery among others,
however, traditional medicine has been underrated/neglected
until recently that research bodies and scientists
focus is gradually embracing studies on the abundant
flora and fauna available for human use on the planet
earth. Several researchers have reported the use of plants
especially herbs and shrubs for treatment of diseases in
folkmedicine and attributed minimal harm for such lofty
endeavours which has culminated in couple of scientific
findings although largely in early stages of scrutiny. This
present study intent was to document mostly if not all
scientific papers and provide a one stop search for all the
archived plants used for the treatment of cancer in Africa
between the periods of twenty years (1998-2018). Well
above 200 articles with relevant information on medicinal
plants for cancer treatment was eventually shortlisted
and assessed thoroughly from notable search engines
such as Science direct, Google scholar, PubMed etc after
adopting some exclusion and inclusion criteria. A total of
207 plant species from 70 different plant families were recorded
in this review. Plants such as Artemisia afra Jacq.,
Artemisia armeniaca Lam., Bidens pilosa L., Solanecio
mannii (Hook.f.) C. Jeffrey, and Solanecio nandensis (S.
Moore) C. Jeffrey were reported for the treatment of different
cancer types such as skin, breast, and colorectal
cancer in southern Africa.

Author(s): Idris O. Raimi

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