Abstract

NOVEL & POTENTIAL PLANT DERIVED ANTI CANCER DRUGS WITH REPRODUCTIVE AND DEVELOPMENTAL TOXICITY: A SALIENT REVIEW

Kavitha CH. N.*, Vaikunta Rao P.

ABSTRACT

Anticancer treatments such as aggressive chemotherapy and radiotherapy have deleterious gonadotoxic side effects and are considered the most common causes of pathological and iatrogenic fertility loss in women Each year worldwide, over 6.6 million women are diagnosed with cancer, and about 10% of them are diagnosed during their reproductive age (age < 40). In both industrialised and developing nations, cancer poses a serious threat to public health. Several clinically beneficial substances have been mostly produced from plants. The side effects of natural anticancer substances are numerous, but we are only focused on the one reproductive toxicity. This article's main goal is to compile information about study findings that have been made public worldwide about the reproductive toxicity of natural substances with anticancer activity. The natural anticancer drugs were thus studied in the current review. The primary reproductive harmful effects include decreased sperm count, testicular toxicity, sperm motility, abnormal shape and size of seminiferous tubules and sperm density, as well as decreased body weight when high dose drugs are used. Reproductive success is dependent on a large number of carefully orchestrated biological events that must occur in a specifically timed sequence. Over the past five years it was revealed that in one-third of the cases of infertility, significant pathology is found in the male partners, and in 20% of the cases, in both partners. Signs of female reproductive toxicity include hormonal irregularities in the oestrous cycle, reduced litter size and reduced fertility. When an overproduction of ROS develops or the body fails to eliminate ROS in excess, oxidative stress arises, during which ROS accumulate and damage cells and tissues which may deeply threaten the anatomical and functional integrity of the genital tract. Particularly, the involvement of the oxidant system in several reproductive processes is investigated, such as follicular development, ovarian steroidogenesis, ovulation, corpus luteum formation and function, luteolysis, germ cell function, maintenance of pregnancy and beginning of parturition.

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