Table 1.

Anticancerous potential of eugenol against several cancer types.

Type of Tumor	Type of Study	Effective Dose	Mode of Action	References
Lung cancer	in vitro	low concentrations to 1000 μM	reduces cyclooxygenase-2 activity, promotes cell cycle arrest at S-phase and initiates apoptosis	[20,55]
Colon cancer	in vitro	800 µM	cell death, necrosis, and slows down cell cycle. Eugenol synergistically boosts the cytotoxic and pro-apoptotic actions of cisplatin, doxorubicin and cinnamaldehyde	[25,76,77]
Gastric cancer	in vitro	low concentration of eugenol loaded with chitosan nanopolymer	stops cancer development, up-regulation of proinvasive and angiogenic factors, favors apoptosis by the mitochondrial pathway through modulating Bcl-2 family proteins	[78,79]
Cervical cancer	in vitro	50–200 μM	boosts apoptosis, cell migration suppression at high concentration	[29,40]
Melanoma	in vitro	0.5 µg	Stops cell cycle and triggers apoptosis, inhibits DNA synthesis	[80,81,82,83,84,85,86]
Breast cancer	in vitro and in vivo	2 µM	down regulating E2F1 and its downstream antiapoptosis target; inhibits breast cancer-related oncogenes	[87,88]