cancers Review Coumarins and Coumarin-Related Compounds in Pharmacotherapy of Cancer Esra Küpeli Akkol 1,* , Yasin Genç 2, Bü¸sraKarpuz 1, Eduardo Sobarzo-Sánchez 3,4 and Raffaele Capasso 5,* 1 Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Gazi University, Etiler 06330, Ankara, Turkey;
[email protected] 2 Department of Pharmacognosy, Faculty of Pharmacy, Hacettepe University, Sıhhiye 06100, Ankara, Turkey;
[email protected] 3 Instituto de Investigación e Innovación en Salud, Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud, Universidad Central de Chile, 8330507 Santiago, Chile;
[email protected] 4 Department of Organic Chemistry, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Santiago de Compostela, 15782 Santiago de Compostela, Spain 5 Department of Agricultural Sciences, University of Naples Federico II, 80055 Portici (Naples), Italy * Correspondence:
[email protected] (E.K.A.);
[email protected] (R.C.); Tel.: +90-312-2023185 (E.K.A); +39-081-678664 (R.C.) Received: 3 July 2020; Accepted: 17 July 2020; Published: 19 July 2020 Abstract: Cancer is one of the most common causes of disease-related deaths worldwide. Despite the discovery of many chemotherapeutic drugs that inhibit uncontrolled cell division processes for the treatment of various cancers, serious side effects of these drugs are a crucial disadvantage. In addition, multi-drug resistance is another important problem in anticancer treatment. Due to problems such as cytotoxicity and drug resistance, many investigations are being conducted to discover and develop effective anticancer drugs. In recent years, researchers have focused on the anticancer activity coumarins, due to their high biological activity and low toxicity. Coumarins are commonly used in the treatment of prostate cancer, renal cell carcinoma and leukemia, and they also have the ability to counteract the side effects caused by radiotherapy.