Human
pancreatic cancer is one of the leading causes of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Despite surgical resection remains the only curative therapeutic treatment for this disease, only the minority of patients can be resected due to late diagnosis. Recently, new
chemotherapy schemes with the combination of different drugs have been shown to improve disease-free survival, although best results were obtained mostly as
neoadjuvant chemotherapy in the minority of patients with resectable
tumor. Consequently, there is stimulated interest in new chemotherapeutic approaches and alternative medicines. Several studies showed that the use of natural compounds, such as
phytochemicals, represents a promising strategy for
pancreatic cancer treatment. One popular
phytochemical with great anticancer properties, is the (-)-epigallocate-chin3-O-gallate (EGCG), the most abundant
catechin found in
green tea. Accumulating evidences demonstrated that EGCG induces apoptosis and inhibits
tumor progression by modulating different signaling pathways in
pancreatic cancer. For these encouraging results, this
catechin is currently used in clinical trials for treatment of various type of
cancer and other diseases, although its poor bioavailability and poor stability represent severe limitations. Therefore, many researchers tried to develop a new strategy based of the use of nanotechnology which increases EGCG stability and bioavailability and simultaneously targets
cancer cells in order to improve its anti-
tumor effects. The aim of this article is to dissect the use of EGCG for management of
pancreatic cancer, by reviewing the pre-clinical studies reported in literature.