A comparative analysis of phytochemicals vs synthetic drugs/nanomedicines in the treatment of Uterine Fibroid: A Systematic Review

Abstract Uterine fibroids (UFs) or leiomyoma is the most common gynaecological disorder affecting 70% of premenopausal women and one of the leading causes of infertility. To date, there is no specific therapy available except surgical intervention including hysterectomy or myomectomy. However, to manage UFs, lot of high cost medications are prescribed although they have serious side effects on women’s reproductive health. Recently an increasing trend has been seen on consuming dietary phytochemicals to control diverse gynaecological ailments. This review's goal is to provide a summary of the knowledge that is currently available regarding the mechanisms of action of various botanical medications with anti-uterine fibroid efficacy. The present results showed that dietary phytocompounds (Dehydroxyelephantopin, Butein, Capsaicin, Fisetin, Kaempferol, Resveratrol, Silibinin and Curcumin) could probably be effective as therapeutic compounds for uterine leiomyoma. These phytochemicals indicated their capability to regulate main fibroid promoting and initiating events for instance, proliferation, inflammation, angiogenesis and fibrosis in various experimental setup through modulating various signalling pathways, such as Smad 2/3, PI3K/AKT/mTOR, ERK 1/2 and β-catenin indicating that they could serve as targets for prevention and/or treatment of ULM. This review provides key molecular insights for development of phytochemical based novel personalized therapy for non-surgical management of ULMs which may help to avoid hysterectomy.