Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the second cause of cancer death worldwide. The metastatic disease is mainly treated with aggressive therapies consisting on combinations of cytotoxic chemotherapy plus anti-EGFR or anti-VEGF drugs. In spite of the improvements in clinical outcomes achieved in the last decade, these are the result of multiple new combinations using the existing therapeutic options and the introduction of regorafenib and TAS-102 in second or later lines of treatment. As immunotherapies are limited to less than 5% of CRC patients harboring tumors with deficient mismatch repair, there is an urgent need of finding new drugs to increase our patients’ survival opportunities.

Among all the natural products that are candidates to be used for the treatment of CRC cancer, curcumin (the golden spice) is in the spotlight. Used for centuries in the Ayurveda medicine, its demonstrated anticancer properties and low toxicity profile made it the focus of hundreds of preclinical and clinical investigations. So far we know that it can be combined with most of the aforementioned drugs in a safe and synergistic way. Regretfully, its poor bioavailability has been one of the main issues for its successful introduction in the clinic. Nevertheless, a plethora of new formulations with a huge increase in bioavailability are under study with promising results. In this review we discuss the possibility of incorporating curcumin in the treatment of CRC; specifically, we review preclinical and clinical data supporting its possible combination with current therapies as well as new formulations under clinical study. It is time for the golden spice revolution.

结直肠癌 (CRC) 是全球癌症死亡的第二大原因。转移性疾病主要用由细胞毒性化学疗法加抗EGFR或抗VEGF药物组合组成的积极疗法来治疗。尽管在过去十年中取得了临床结果的改善，但这些都是使用现有治疗方案的多种新组合以及在二线或后续治疗中引入瑞戈非尼和 TAS-102 的结果。由于免疫疗法仅限于不到 5% 的患有错配修复缺陷的肿瘤的 CRC 患者，因此迫切需要寻找新药来增加患者的生存机会。

在所有可用于治疗 CRC 癌症的天然产品中，姜黄素（黄金香料）备受关注。在阿育吠陀医学中使用了几个世纪，其展示的抗癌特性和低毒性特征使其成为数百个临床前和临床研究的焦点。到目前为止，我们知道它可以以安全和协同的方式与大多数上述药物联合使用。遗憾的是，其较差的生物利用度一直是其成功引入临床的主要问题之一。然而，大量生物利用度大幅提高的新配方正在研究中，并取得了可喜的结果。在这篇综述中，我们讨论了在 CRC 治疗中加入姜黄素的可能性；具体来说，我们审查了支持其可能与当前疗法以及临床研究中的新制剂组合的临床前和临床数据。现在是时候了黄金香料革命。