Phytochemicals for the prevention and treatment of pancreatic cancer: Current progress and future prospects

Pancreatic cancer is the third leading cause of cancer‐related deaths in the United States, owing to its aggressive nature and suboptimal treatment options, emphasizing the need for novel therapeutic approaches. Emerging studies have exhibited promising results regarding the therapeutic utility of plant‐derived compounds (phytochemicals) in pancreatic cancer. The purpose of this review is to evaluate the potential of phytochemicals in the treatment and prevention of pancreatic cancer. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta‐Analyses was applied to collect articles for this review. Scholarly databases, including PubMed, Scopus and ScienceDirect, were queried for relevant studies using the following keywords: phytochemicals, phenolics, terpenoids, alkaloids, sulfur‐containing compounds, in vitro, in vivo, clinical studies, pancreatic cancer, tumour, treatment and prevention. Aggregate results pooled from qualified studies indicate phytochemicals can inhibit pancreatic cancer cell growth or decrease tumour size and volume in animal models. These effects have been attributed to various mechanisms, such as increasing proapoptotic factors, decreasing antiapoptotic factors, or inducing cell death and cell cycle arrest. Notable signalling pathways modulated by phytochemicals include the rat sarcoma/mitogen activated protein kinase, wingless‐related integration site/β‐catenin and phosphoinositide 3‐kinase/protein kinase B/mammalian target of rapamycin signal transduction pathways. Clinically, phytochemicals have been found to increase survival while being well‐tolerated and safe, though research is scarce. While these promising results have produced great interest in this field, further in‐depth studies are required to characterize the anticancer activities of phytochemicals before they can be utilized to prevent or treat pancreatic cancer in clinical practice.