Curcumin and breast cancer: therapeuticpotential and mechanism in multi-drug resistance

Background: One of the current important treatments for breastcancer management is chemotherapy, which has been associatedwith promising efforts and achievements in the past decades.However, multi-drug resistance (MDR) to chemotherapyagents remains the main obstacle to cancer therapies. Intrinsicand acquired drug resistance is the main responsible for cancerrecurrence, which is known as a major cause of death. Therefore,it is necessary to identify new agents to overcome drugresistance. This study aimed to clarify the effect of curcumin onMDR in breast cancer (BC).Materials and Methods: PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Sciencewere searched through April ۲۰۲۳ for studies that administeredcurcumin to investigate MDR in BC.Results: The sensitizing effects of curcumin have been studiedin composition with chemotherapy drugs including cisplatin,paclitaxel, doxorubicin, and ۵-fluorouracil in BC celllines such as MCF-۷, MCF-۷ADR, MDA-MB-۲۳۱. Studiesreported that curcumin increases the sensitivity in the resistantcells to chemotherapy drugs, which has apoptotic and growth inhibitory effects. This effect is probably through suppressionof the function and expression of the P-glycoprotein drug effluxpump and BAX/BCL-۲ modification in cancer cells. Also, curcumincould decrease MDR breast cancer through induction ofautophagy by down-regulate the expression of CCAT۱, PI۳K/Akt/mTOR pathway.Conclusion: According to the results of preclinical studies, curcuminadministration can inhibit the MDR in BC cells. However,more research is needed to evaluate the effects of curcuminas an adjunctive therapy in BC treatment