Most of the classical chemotherapeutics drugs come from plants extracts. But almost all of them have suffered some type of chemical modification so they became semisynthetic drugs until they are fully synthetized in the laboratory. The best example are taxanes which were originally extracted from the bark of taxus brevifolia. But the amount obtained was so meager that it was impossible to provide thousands of patients with it. Finally labs synthetized the active principle and nowadays it is one of the most hygly used chemotherapeutic drug.
About targeted treatments like kinase inhibitors, almost all the products were originally a lab product specifically designed for this purpose.
Finally those that work against certain tumor proteins (on an immunology base like monoclonal antibodies) are also a purely lab design without any relation with plants.
So that in general, plant extracts need modifications (semisynthetic products) to achieve the requirements for its clinical use. In this sense, and answering your question, synthetic products are more effective in the treatment of cancer than the original plant extracts.
- Badges
- Science topic
- Similar topics
- Phytochemistry
- Extracts