A Review on Recent Advances of Anticancer Potentials of Some Medicinal Plants

Cancer continues to represent a major global health challenge, with conventional treatment modalities often constrained by systemic toxicity, drug resistance, and high economic burden. In recent years, medicinal plants and their bioactive phytochemicals have gained considerable attention as promising anticancer agents due to their multitargeted mechanisms of action and comparatively favorable safety profiles. This review summarizes recent advances in the anticancer potential of some medicinal plants against specific cancer types, compositions of different plants’ bioactive compounds as well as molecular mechanisms of the plants. Different mechanisms including induction of apoptosis, cell cycle arrest, inhibition of angiogenesis and metastasis, modulation of immune responses, and regulation of critical oncogenic signaling pathways such as PI3K/Akt, NF-κB, STAT3, and Wnt/β-catenin have been discussed. Despite promising preclinical and early clinical findings, challenges related to poor bioavailability, lack of standardization and limited large-scale clinical validation remain significant barriers to clinical translation. Advances in drug delivery systems, particularly nanotechnology-based approaches, along with standardized formulations and rational combination strategies, offer promising solutions. This review highlights the therapeutic potential of medicinal plant-derived compounds as complementary or adjunctive agents in cancer management and underscores the need for rigorous clinical studies to facilitate their integration into evidence-based oncology.