Though limited success through chemotherapy, radiotherapy and surgery has been obtained for efficient cancer therapy for modern decades, cancers are still considered high burden to human health worldwide to date. Recently repurposing drugs are attractive with lower cost and shorter time compared to classical drug discovery, just as Metformin from Galega officinalis, originally approved for treating Type 2 diabetes by FDA, is globally valued at millions of US dollars for cancer therapy. As most previous reviews focused on FDA approved drugs and synthetic agents, current review discussed the anticancer potential of phytochemicals originally approved for treatment of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, infectious diarrhea, depression and malaria with their molecular mechanisms and efficacies and suggested future research perspectives.

尽管现代几十年来通过化学疗法、放射疗法和手术获得的有效癌症治疗的成功有限，但迄今为止，癌症仍然被认为是全世界人类健康的沉重负担。与经典药物发现相比，近期再利用药物具有吸引力，成本更低，时间更短，就像来自Galega officinalis的二甲双胍一样最初被 FDA 批准用于治疗 2 型糖尿病，全球价值数百万美元的癌症治疗。由于之前的大多数评论都集中在 FDA 批准的药物和合成剂上，目前的评论讨论了最初批准用于治疗心血管疾病、糖尿病、感染性腹泻、抑郁症和疟疾的植物化学物质的抗癌潜力及其分子机制和功效，并提出了未来的研究前景。