Radioprotectors: Nature's Boon

Major approach in controlling as well as eradicating the cancerous growth is through radiotherapy, but this treatment leads to toxicity in the normal cells, leading to secondary malignancies, teratogenesis, and necrosis. More than 15,000 malignancies occur due to exposure to harmful radiations during computed tomography scans. Natural products are non-toxic; there have been reports that herbal products, when given along with radiation, have shown increased tumor control property. The discussed agents in this review have potential antioxidant, immunomodulatory, free radical scavenging, metal chelating, and anti-inflammatory properties.

To reduce the chances of toxicity, reduction in radiation dose or reducing the frequency of the therapy is made which usually leads to a therapeutically poor outcome. The most feasible method is to protect the normal cells by administration of radioprotective agents either before or after the exposure. These agents have been tested on animals and human cell models for evaluating their safety window and toxicity profile at the cellular level. The study aims to compile the effective natural radioprotective agents available, which can be further exploited by using certain QSAR studies to increase their potency.

Structured literature search from EMBASE, PubMed, Bentham Science, Scopus, and ScienceDirect was carried out and appropriate peer-reviewed review articles, as well as certain research articles, were included and compiled in this review paper.

As various studies have indicated the harmful effects of ionizing radiations on normal cells, to reduce these effects, radioprotective agents are used before or after exposure to radiations. Compounds derived from natural sources are proved to have few side effects and they possess radioprotective property due to the presence of alkaloids, resins, volatile oils, tannins in their molecular structure. Various plants having such radioprotective constitutes have been identified for their radioprotective action and compiled in the present study.