Improving In Vivo Efficacy of Bioactive Molecules: An Overview of Potentially Antitumor Phytochemicals and Currently Available Lipid-Based Delivery Systems

Table 1

Polyphenols studied in experimental in vitro tests, in vivo models, and clinical trials.

Polyphenols	Phytochemical	Main source	Cancer targets in vivo and in vitro	Clinical trials	References cancer targets/clinical trials	Chemical structure
Phenolic acids	Ellagic acid	Pomegranate, berries, grapes	Prostate	Prostate; Follicular lymphoma	[161–165]/; [166, 167]
			Pancreas
			Bladder
			Breast
			Colon
Flavonoids	(−)-Epigallocatechin-3-gallate  (EGCG)	Green tea; (Camellia sinensis)	Prostate	Prostate; Papilloma cervical; Breast; Prostate	[168–174]/; [175–178]
			Renal carcinoma
			Breast
			Laryngeal carcinoma
			Non-small cell lung
			Colon
			Pancreas
	Genistein	Soybean	Bone marrow	Prostate	[179–183]/; [184–187]
			Prostate	Bone
			Breast	Endometrial
			Cervical	Breast
			Colon	Bladder
	Luteolin	Cabbages, celery, broccoli, onion leaves, parsley	Hepatocellular carcinoma	—	[188–193]
			Oral squamous carcinoma
			Prostate
			Breast
			Thyroid
			Colorectal
			Cervical
			Lung
	Silymarin	Thistle; (Silybum marianum)	Prostate	Upper gastrointestinal; Leukemia	[194–198]/; [199, 200]
			Breast
			Ovary
			Colon
			Lung
			Bladder
			Skin
			Prostate
	Quercetin	Capers, lovage leaves, apple	Pancreas	Large bowel	[201–206]/; [207–209]
			Breast	Ovary
			Cervical	Pancreas
			Colon	Prostate
			Prostate	Thrombotic
			Lung	Colorectal
Stilbenes	Resveratrol	Grape, berries	Breast		[38, 39, 210–217]/; [218–222]
			Colorectal
			Hepatic melanoma
			Lung	Colorectal
			Pancreas	Colon
			Prostate	Gastrointestinal tumors
			Skin
			Bladder
			Ovarian
Curcuminoids	Curcumin	Curcuma longa L.	Pancreas	Pancreas; Colorectal; Colon; Liver; Pancreas; Breast; Head and neck	[40, 41, 223–230]/; [96, 231–238]
			Prostate
			Ovarian
			Melanoma
			Head and neck squamous cell carcinoma
			Leukemia
			Hepatoma
			Gastric
			Glioblastoma
			Lung
			Breast
			Cervical
			Colorectal

Clinical trials carried out considering phytochemicals as dietary complements or drugs (therapy) in cancer patients.
For the experimental studies, in vivo studies are in italic characters.
Chemical structures were obtained by using ChemDraw Professional 15.0 software.