Abstract: To look for a kind of natural medicines which characterized of safety, low toxicity and efficient to improve patient′s life quality has been a hotspot of research on domestic and foreign scholars. Curcumin is a monomer which extracted from traditional Chinese medicine, such as turmeric, rhizoma zedoariae, radix curcumae. A number of studies have confirmed that curcumin has the function of anti-tumor, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and other biological activities. Curcumin has a good development prospect. The advantages of curcumin are large ranges of anticancer; a wide range of pharmacological effects; little side-effects and so on. This article summarizes the anti-tumor mechanism of curcumin and hope to provide references for the clinical application. 

Key words: curcumin, cancer, mechanisms