Therapeutic applications of curcumin for patients with pancreatic cancer

Table 1 A summary of representative preclinical studies on the anticancer effects of curcumin against pancreatic cancer

Reported molecular targets	Curcumin dose required for the reported effects
	in vitro(μmol/L)	in vivo
NF-κB↓ (Ref. 14)	≥ 5.4	NA
NF-κB↓, cyclin-D1↓	≥ 25	1 g/kg per day, po
c-myc↓, Bcl-2↓
Bcl-xL↓, cIAP-1↓
MMP↓, COX2↓
VEGF↓ (Ref. 36)
NF-κB↓, Sp-1, Sp-3, Sp4↓	≥ 25	100 mg/kg per day, intraperitoneal injection
cyclin-D1↓, survivin↓
VEGF↓ (Ref. 27)
NF-κB↓, PGE2↓	≥ 4	NA
VEGF↓, miR-21↓
miR-200↑ (Ref. 28)

cIAP1: Cellular inhibitor of apoptosis portein-1; MMP: Matrix metalloproteinase; COX2: Cyclooxygenase-2; VEGF: Vascular endothelial growth factor; PGE2: Prostaglandin E2; NA: Not available.

Table 2 A summary of published clinical trials testing curcumin in patients with pancreatic cancer

	Dhillon et al[47]	Kanai et al[48]	Epelbaum et al[49]	Kanai et al[69]
Sample size	25	21	17	14
Study design	Phase II	Phase I/II	Phase II	Phase I
Study period	20081	2008-2009	2004-2006	2011-2012
Dose of curcumin	8 g/d	8 g/d	8 g/d	200 mg/d2 (n = 9) 400 mg/d2 (n = 5)
Prior history of chemotherapy	Yes (n = 22)	Yes (n = 21)	None	yes (n = 14)
Concomitant use of anticancer drug	No	Yes	Yes	Yes
Major toxicity associated with curcumin	None	None	Abdominal discomfort (n = 5)	Abdominal pain (n = 2)
Median survival time (mo)	NA	5.4	5	4.4

¹Publication year;

²THERACURMIN^® was used in this study. NA: Not available.

Table 3 A comparison of representative studies reporting plasma curcumin levels in human subjects

	Lao et al[42]	Sharma et al[45]	Garcea et al[46]	Kanai et al[68]
Sample size	3 (1)1	3	3	6
Dose of curcumin (g/d)	12	3.6	3.6	0.211
Plasma curcumin levels (ng/mL, mean ± SE)	57	4 ± 0.2	< 1	275 ± 67

¹Plasma curcumin was detected in only one subject.