Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. There are many
problems in cancer therapy due to the side-effects which limit its usage. Products
derived from natural substances, particularly polyphenolic compounds which have very
little toxic effects on normal cells, have gained a crucial interest as therapeutic weapon
in clinical oncology due to their chemopreventive, antitumoral, radiosensibilizing and
chemosensibilizing activities against different types of aggressive, recurrent and drugresistant
cancers.
Especially now, polyphenols and their applications are one of the most studied topics in
the literature due to their promising results against cancer cells. In many studies, it has
been reported that, polyphenols inhibited the development of tumors through variety of
mechanisms and reduce the tumor cell mass. However, with all the advantages of
polyphenols, in the literature it is stated that, issues like poor solubility, high
degradation rate and high dose requirement restrict the applications of polyphenols.
Still, these obstacles can be overcome by using encapsulation and nano-drug delivery
systems for plant-derived polyphenols. With the encapsulation techniques it is possible
to increase their bioavailability, stability of the polyphenols and their uptake in the
targeted cells. Encapsulated polyphenols have been used against cancer in various
scientific studies. And the obtained results were promising. With the encapsulation
methods, greater accumulation of polyphenols has been observed on the cell membrane
and cytoplasm due to smaller size.
In this chapter, plant-derived polyphenols, their stabilities and encapsulation of
polyphenols in order to increase their stability and their potential as cancer treatment
agents will be explained.
Keywords: Anticancerogenic, Cancer Treatments, Drug Delivery, Drug Delivery
Systems, Encapsulation, Flavonoids, Nanoparticles, Phenolic Acids, Polyphenols.
