Cancer incidence has continued to increase in recent years by environmental pollution, high fat diet, excessive stress, smoking as well as increasing life expectancy. Therefore, people have been more concerning about prevention of cancer. Especially, the concept of cancer chemoprevetion-the prevention, delaying or reversing cancer by intervention using nontoxic synthetic chemicals or chemicals from natural substances before malignancy-is the alternative way to conquer cancer. As far, the compounds that have cancer preventive effects are those which have antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and phase II enzyme inductive actions. This review will focus on inflammation-related enzymes and its products such as phospholipase A₂ (PLA₂), cyclooxygenase (COX) and prostaglandins (PGs). Based on recent results that some natural products have been shown cancer preventive effects, we also propose the agents that have COX-2 inhibitory activity. These potential inhibitory compounds will be promising therapeutic agents for prevention of cacner.

Keywords: Phospholipase A₂, Cyclooxygenase, Prostaglandin, Natural product