癌症是全球主要的死因之一。一线治疗通常包括手术、放射治疗和/或全身治疗。这些方法可能与严重不良事件相关，并且可能对健康细胞具有毒性。尽管癌症治疗取得了新的进展，但仍然需要安全有效的治疗剂。半胱胺是一种内源性合成的胺硫醇，人体细胞在辅酶A降解过程中合成。在人们中已安全用于治疗多种病理情况，包括囊性病和神经退行性疾病。 半胱胺在多个体外和体内研究中显示了强大的抗突变、抗致癌和抗黑色素瘤活性，但目前文献中缺乏对半胱胺在医学中的应用的综述。 半胱胺在体外和体内研究中已显示出对不同类型的癌症有治疗作用，如胃肠癌、胰腺癌、肉瘤、肝细胞癌和黑色素瘤，能够显著减少病变和/或增加生存时间。 尽管作用机制尚不完全清楚，可能的解释包括(i)清除自由基，(ii)通过影响核酸和蛋白质合成或抑制DNA合成来改变肿瘤细胞增殖，以及(iii)调节激素。 总之，鉴于半胱胺的高安全性和本文所提供的当前文献数据，半胱胺可能被视为预防和治疗癌症的有趣分子。 进一步的临床研究应该在人类中进行以支持这些数据。版权所有 © 2023 李俊文。

Cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. First-line treatments usually include surgery, radiotherapy, and/or systemic therapy. These methods can be associated with serious adverse events and can be toxic to healthy cells. Despite the new advances in cancer therapies, there is still a continuous need for safe and effective therapeutic agents. Cysteamine is an aminothiol endogenously synthetized by human cells during the degradation of coenzyme-A. It has been safely used in humans for the treatment of several pathologies including cystinosis and neurodegenerative diseases. Cysteamine has been shown to be a potent antimutagenic, anticarcinogenic, and antimelanoma in various in vitro and in vivo studies, but a review on these aspects of cysteamine's use in medicine is lacking in the current literature. The efficacy of cysteamine has been shown in vitro and in vivo for the treatment of different types of cancer, such as gastrointestinal cancer, pancreatic cancer, sarcomas, hepatocellular carcinoma, and melanoma, leading to the significant reduction of lesions and/or the increase of survival time. Although the mechanisms of action are not fully understood, possible explanations are (i) free radical scavenging, (ii) alteration of the tumor cell proliferation by affecting nucleic acid and protein synthesis or inhibition of DNA synthesis, and (iii) hormone regulation. In conclusion, regarding the high safety profile of cysteamine and the current literature data presented in this article, cysteamine might be considered as an interesting molecule for the prevention and the treatment of cancer. Further clinical studies should be performed to support these data in humans.Copyright © 2023 Chun-Man Lee.