SCREENING OF ECLIPTA ALBA EXTRACTS FOR ANTICANCER ACTIVITY

Cancer is the second largest cause of death which killed 7.6 million people worldwide in 2005 (Danaei et al., 2005). The number is believed to become 9 million in 2015 and 11.5 million in 2030 (World Health Organization, 2007). There is an increasing interest to research and develop on new anticancer drugs, from both synthetic and natural sources (Mukherjee et al., 2001). Half of the drugs which have been approved recently are from natural sources. Plants have been extensively used as natural sources to develop anticancer drugs because of their active constituents. Medicinal plants in Asian countries play an important role in cancer treatment and indeed, their chemical constituents and derivatives have been utilized for combating cancers over the last half-century. Presently in the study Eclipta alba ethanolic plant extract has been used for screening the anti-cancer activity in-vitro and the results obtained, gives the evidence that the ethanolic extract inhibit the growth of colon cancer cells at concentrations that showed no apparent toxicity effect against normal cells.