Carica papaya is widely cultivated in tropical and subtropical countries and is used as food as well as traditional medicine to treat a range of diseases. Increasing anecdotal reports of its effects in cancer treatment and prevention, with many successful cases, have warranted that these pharmacological properties be scientifically validated. A bibliographic search was conducted using the key words "papaya", "anticancer", and "antitumor" along with cross-referencing. No clinical or animal cancer studies were identified and only seven in vitro cell-culture-based studies were reported; these indicate that C. papaya extracts may alter the growth of several types of cancer cell lines. However, many studies focused on specific compounds in papaya and reported bioactivity including anticancer effects. This review summarizes the results of extract-based or specific compound-based investigations and emphasizes the aspects that warrant future research to explore the bioactives in C. papaya for their anticancer activities.
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science
25
9%
Chemistry
24
9%
Other
29
10%
Unknown
108
38%
Attention Score in Context
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 20. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 27 August 2025.
All research outputs
#2,229,091
of 32,202,065 outputs
Outputs from Molecular Nutrition & Food Research
#384
of 3,069 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#17,527
of 331,723 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Molecular Nutrition & Food Research
#5
of 45 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 32,202,065 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done particularly well and is in the 93rd percentile: it's in the top 10% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,069 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 14.5. This one has done well, scoring higher than 87% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 331,723 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done particularly well, scoring higher than 94% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 45 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has done well, scoring higher than 88% of its contemporaries.
