PURPOSE: Cancer is a serious health issue and a leading cause of death worldwide. Most of the cancer patients (approximately 90%) do not die from the consequences of the primary tumor development, but due to a heavily treatable metastatic invasion. During the lengthy multistep process of carcinogenesis, there are a lot of opportunities available to reverse or slow down the tissue invasion or the process of tumor metastasis formation. RESULTS: Current research has brought many promising results from anti-metastatic experimental studies, and has shown that chemoprevention by natural or semisynthetic phytochemicals with plethora of biological activities could be one of the potentially effective options in the fight against this problem. However, there is a lack of clinical trials to confirm these findings. In this review, we focused on summarization and discussion of the general features of metastatic cancer, and recent preclinical and clinical studies dealing with anti-metastatic potential of various plant-derived compounds. CONCLUSIONS: Based on our findings, we can conclude and confirm our hypothesis that phytochemicals with pleiotropic anticancer effects can be very useful in retarding and/or reversing the metastasis process, and can also be used to prevent tissue invasion and metastases. But, further studies in this area are certainly necessary and desirable.

2nd Department of Surgery Faculty of Medicine Masaryk University Brno Czech Republic

Biomedical Center Martin Division of Oncology Jessenius Faculty of Medicine Comenius University in Bratislava Martin Slovakia

Department of Biology and Ecology Faculty of Education Catholic University in Ruzomberok Ruzomberok Slovakia

Department of Gynaecology and Obstetrics Faculty of Medicine Pavol Jozef Safarik University and University Hospital Kosice Slovakia

Department of Histology and Embryology Jessenius Faculty of Medicine Comenius University in Bratislava Martin Slovakia

Department of Immunology School of Medicine Keimyung University Daegu South Korea

Department of Internal Medicine Brothers of Mercy Hospital Polní 3 639 00 Brno Czech Republic

Department of Medical Biology Jessenius Faculty of Medicine Comenius University in Bratislava Mala Hora 4 036 01 Martin Slovakia

Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology Jessenius Faculty of Medicine and Martin University Hospital Comenius University in Bratislava Martin Slovakia

Department of Physiology and Biophysics Weill Cornell College of Medicine Education City Qatar Foundation Doha Qatar

Institute for Health and Sport Victoria University Melbourne Australia

International Research Centre Biotechnologies of the 3rd Millennium ITMO University Saint Petersburg Russian Federation

St Anne's University Hospital Brno Czech Republic

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