Clinical antitumor application and pharmacological mechanisms of Dahuang Zhechong Pill

Cancer still has elevated morbidity and mortality, which undoubtedly impacts the life quality of affected individuals. Remarkable advances have been made in cancer therapy, although the toxicities of tradi-tional therapies remain an obvious challenge. Dahuang Zhechong Pill (DHZCP), developed by Zhongjing Zhang in the Synopsis of the Golden Chamber, represents an effective anticancer traditional Chinese med-icine (TCM). In this review, it was found that DHZCP is therapeutically utilized in liver, lung, gastric, pan-creatic and other cancers in clinic. Pharmacological evidence showed that its anti-tumor mechanisms mainly involve induced cell cycle arrest, apoptosis and autophagy, as well as suppressed tumor cell pro-liferation, obstructed angiogenesis and metastasis, enhanced immunity, and reversal of multidrug resis-tance. The present review provides a solid basis for the clinical application of DHZCP and may promote the wide use of TCM in clinical antitumor application.CO 2022 Tianjin Press of Chinese Herbal Medicines. Published by ELSEVIER B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).