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

Table 2

Terpenes, organosulfur, and phytosterols commonly studied in cancer therapy.

Family	Phytochemical	Main source	Cancer targets in vivo and in vitro	Clinical trials	References cancer targets/clinical trials	Chemical structure
Terpenes
Carotenoids	Lycopene  (tetraterpene)	Tomato (Lycopersicon esculentum)	Prostate	Prostate	[239–242]/; [243, 244]
			Colon
			Breast
			Lung
			Cervical
			Breast
			Laryngeal
			Liver carcinoma
	Astaxanthin	Green microalgae (Haematococcus pluvialis)	Hepatic	—	[245–251]
			Oral carcinoma
			Fibrosarcoma
			Skin
			Bladder
			Colon
	β-Elemene	Ginger, celery	Laryngeal	Glioma	[252–256]/; [257]
			Non-small cell lung
			Gastric cancer
			Prostate
			Brain
			Breast
			Cervical
			Colon
			Ovarian
			Melanoma
			Glioblastoma
Noncarotenoid	Carnosol  (diterpene)	Sage (Salvia carnosa), Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis)	Colon	—	[258–263]
			Prostate
			Skin
			Breast
			Ovarian
			Intestinal
			Melanoma
Organosulfur
Thiosulfinates	Sulforaphane	Brassica vegetables	Skin	Breast	[42, 95, 264–267]/; [268]
			Gastrointestinal-colon
			Prostate
			Pancreas
			Breast
			Bladder
			Ovary
			Mammary
	Diallyl disulfide	Allyl vegetables	Gastric	—	[43, 44, 269–273]
			Breast
			Leukemia
			Neuroblastoma
			Prostate
			Colon
			Thyroid
Phytosterols
Phytosterols	β-Sitosterol	Vegetal oils	Colon	—	[274–278]
			Breast
			Stomach
			Prostate
			Fibrosarcoma

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.