Melatonin and gastrointestinal cancers: Current evidence based on underlying signaling pathways.

Melatonin and gastrointestinal cancers: Current evidence based on underlying signaling pathways. Eur J Pharmacol. 2020 Aug 30;:173471 Authors: Pourhanifeh MH, Mehrzadi S, Kamali M, Hosseinzadeh A Abstract Gastrointestinal (GI) cancers, leading causes of cancer-related deaths, have been serious challenging human diseases up to now. Because of high rates of mortality, late-stage diagnosis, metastasis to distant locations, and low effectiveness and adverse events of routine standard therapies, the quality of life and survival time are low in patients with GI cancers. Hence, many efforts need to be done to explore and find novel efficient treatments. Beneficial effects of melatonin have been reported in a wide variety of human diseases. Melatonin has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antimicrobial, and anticancer effects. Various studies have showed the regulatory effects of melatonin on apoptotsis, autophagy and angiogenesis; these properties result in the inhibition of invasion, migration, and proliferation of GI cancer cells in vivo and in vitro. Together, this review suggests that melatonin in combination with anticancer agents may improve the efficacy of routine medicine and survival rate of patients with cancer. PMID: 32877658 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: European Journal of Pharmacology - Category: Drugs & Pharmacology Authors: Tags: Eur J Pharmacol Source Type: research