SYSTEMATIC REVIEW article
Front. Pharmacol.
Sec. Pharmacology of Anti-Cancer Drugs
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fphar.2025.1642957
The potential value of quercetin for colorectal cancer: A systematic review and a meta-analysis of preclinical studies
Provisionally accepted
- 1Shandong University of Traditional Chinese Medicine, Jinan, China
- 2Shandong Second Provincial General Hospital, Jinan, China
- 3Shandong Provincial Hospital, Jinan, China
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Objective: Quercetin, a ubiquitous natural flavonoid present in numerous medicinal plants and foods, has been widely recognized for its various bioactive properties. However, despite its potential, the preclinical animal studies evaluating its therapeutic efficacy in colorectal cancer (CRC) remain inadequate, and the existing clinical research in this area is still limited in quantity. These deficiencies hinder the practical application of quercetin in the treatment of colorectal cancer. Methods: Our comprehensive review involved systematically searching major databases—including PubMed, Web of Science, and Embase—up to April 2025 for relevant preclinical studies. The SYRCLE risk of bias tool was employed by researchers to evaluate each entry. Subsequently, data analysis was conducted using the statistical software Review Manager 5.4. Results: The results of our meta-analysis showed that quercetin treatment not only significantly reduced the incidence of CRC (SMD-1.22, 95% CI: -0.26 to -0.38, p = 0.004), but also alleviated inflammation and oxidative stress compared with the control group. Quercetin treatment effectively improved the degree of crypt lesions (SMD-1.40, 95%CI: -2.53 to -0.26, p = 0.02) and alleviated precancerous lesions in the animal model of CRC. In terms of tumor cell proliferation, quercetin had a significant inhibitory effect on cell proliferation during treatment, as determined by PCNA analysis (SMD -8.22, 95% CI: -10.48 to -5.95, p < 0.00001). Quercetin may promote apoptosis during treatment, but this hypothesis has not been supported. Conclusion: Our study indicates that quercetin exerts beneficial effects across multiple facets of CRC treatment. Nonetheless, precise evaluation of quercetin's impact on colorectal cancer demands further high-quality, large-scale animal and human studies to confirm our findings.
Keywords: Quercetin, colorectal cancer, animal model, meta analysis, Systematic review
Received: 07 Jun 2025; Accepted: 22 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Duan, Zhang and Liu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Fenye Liu, Shandong Provincial Hospital, Jinan, China
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.