Pharmacothrapy of Cancer in Ayurveda

Abstract

Cancer is an uncontrolled growth disorder of cells characterized by the formation of tumor, invasiveness, metastasis and anaplasia. The disease is a major cause of motility and morbidity across the world. Despite a huge advancement in the therapeutic strategies, it is still a major cause of death worldwide. Ayurveda describes a variety of clinical conditions which have approximate similarities with cancer. Out of them description of Granthi and Arvuda by Sushruta and delineation of their characteristic features apparently denote to benign and malignant tumors respectively. The treatment strategy in Ayurveda consists of surgical, parasurgical as well as medicinal treatments. Therefore it is judicious to design a proper treatment strategy for the treatment of cancer with special reference to Arvuda in Ayurveda. In this paper attempts have been made to design a suitable medicinal strategy for the treatment of cancer on the basis of their mechanism of action with special reference to the pharmacodynamical factors of drug action mentioned in Ayurveda.