Tocotrienols in Female Reproductive Cancers: A Long Way to Go

Siti Syairah Mohd Mutalip

Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Puncak Alam Campus, Selangor 42300, Malaysia

Siti Syairah Mohd Mutalip, Faculty of Pharmacy, Universiti Teknologi MARA (UiTM) Puncak Alam Campus, Selangor 42300, Malaysia.

Keywords: Vitamin E; Tocotrienols; Tocopherols; Anticancer

Abstract

The discovery of vitamin E was first documented in 1922 through the finding of a particular ‘antisterility Substance-X’ that was necessary for reproduction. However, the trends in the continuing studies involving vitamin E have directed the interest on vitamin E on its antioxidant properties. The ability of vitamin E to act as an anticancer was only reported in 1990s, in which from then on many researches have been conducted to understand its mechanisms of actions against cancer cells. A lot of study reports were documented, including its effect as an anticancer against breast, cervix, colon, liver, lung, ovary, pancreas, prostate, skin and stomach cancers. From these reports, the studies particularly on female reproductive cancers such as breast cancer have been widely made known, but the studies on the ovarian and cervical cancers are limited. This paper intended to summarize on the available reports on the effects of vitamin E on ovarian and cervical cancers conducted in vitro, which could possibly be useful in studying its importance for future clinical use.

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