Effects of Phytochemicals in Attenuating Melanoma: A Comprehensive Literature Review

Abstract

Melanoma is an aggressive form of skin cancer associated with a low survival rate, high mortality, poor quality of life, and incidence that has risen significantly in the last few decades. While surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy drugs are available as treatment choices, melanoma still has an unfavorable clinical outcome. This can be related to the metastatic potential and heterogeneity of melanoma and to the multitude of adverse effects (AEs) that are caused by chemotherapy, the most common of which are alopecia, nausea, changes in taste and appetite, fatigue, vomiting, dry mouth, and constipation. The recent decade has seen a rise in the trend of studies using plant-derived phytochemicals in vivo and in vitro studies, which have demonstrated anti-tumor activity along with the added benefit of significantly lower AEs. These secondary metabolites of plants like chlorogenic acid, rosmarinic acid, palmatine, berberine, quercetin, myricadiol, and other phytochemicals found in natural sources like Marrubium lutescens, Berberis pruinosa, Lannea coromandelica, Orbea variegata, and Galium verum, among others, are now gaining considerable importance for use against melanoma. Related studies were collected through a literature review and are discussed in this article.