Due to the severe side-effects and the toxicity to healthy tissues, cancer treatments based in chemotherapy have not fully achieved the desire outcomes so far. The use of natural compound may be of great value to develop better tolerated therapies. Fucoidan is a marine sulfated polysaccharide extracted from brown algae that, besides other biological activities, has been reported to present interesting anti-cancer potential. This review briefly introduces fucoidan chemical structure, physicochemical properties and the above-mentioned biological feature. Fucoidan usage as soluble agent presents promising results herein described for different types of cancer. Trying to enhance and optimize fucoidan usage in the cancer field, different systems, namely drug delivery, have been recently developed to target different types of cancers. This aspect will be presented in detail, highlighting the role of fucoidan on their reported or envisaged performance.

中文翻译：

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岩藻依聚糖抗肿瘤策略的综述：从生物活性剂到基于岩藻依聚糖的系统的结构成分。

由于严重的副作用和对健康组织的毒性，迄今为止，基于化学疗法的癌症治疗尚未完全达到期望的结果。天然化合物的使用可能对开发更好的耐受治疗具有重要价值。岩藻依聚糖是从褐藻中提取的一种海洋硫酸化多糖，除其他生物活性外，据报道还具有令人感兴趣的抗癌潜力。本文简要介绍了岩藻依聚糖的化学结构，理化性质和上述生物学特性。岩藻依聚糖用作可溶性试剂在本文中针对不同类型的癌症表现出令人鼓舞的结果。为了增强和优化岩藻依聚糖在癌症领域的使用，最近开发了针对不同类型癌症的不同系统，即药物递送。