ABSTRACT
Bee venom [BV], like many other complementary medicines, has been used for thousands of years for the treatment of a range of diseases. More recently, BV is also being considered as an effective composition for the treatment of cancer. Cancer is a major worldwide problem. It is obvious that the identification of compounds that can activate apoptosis could be effective on the treatment of cancer. BV is a very complicated mixture of active peptides, enzymes, and biologically active amines. The two main components of BV are melittin and phospholipase A[2] [PLA2]. Of these two components, melittin, the major active ingredient of BV, has been identified to induce apoptosis and to possess antitumor effects. We tried to review antineoplastic effects of BV in this study. The related articles were derived from different data bases such as PubMed, Elsevier Science, and Google Scholar using keywords including bee venom, cancer, and apoptosis. According to the results of this study, BV can induce apoptosis and inhibit tumor cell growth and metastasis. Results of in vivo experiments show that the anti-tumor effect of the BV is highly dependent on the manner of injection as well as the distance between the area of injection and the tumor cells. The results obtained from the reported studies revealed that BV has anticancer effects and can be used as an effective chemotherapeutic agent against tumors in the future