80POTENTIAL CANCER CHEMOPREVENTIVE ROLE OF PHYTOCHEMICALS -TARGETING SITES AND ACTIONSCancer continues to be major public health concern worldwide and main modalities for treatment include chemo and/or radiotherapy and surgery which are often commonly used in conjunction to control and treat cancer with limitations that include development of resistance to chemotherapy and inability to continue these therapies indefinitely due to their cumulative toxicities. Synthetic drugs undoubtedly offer reliable and efficacious treatment, nonetheless, they are typically therapeutic, rather than preventive and often associated with serious side effects. Humans have always looked towards plants as a viable solution for their various healths related problems since ancient times. The easy availability, less toxic potential, cheaper costs, effective nature, coupled with their ability to prevent, the hitherto incurable diseases like cancer, AIDS, hepatitis C, Alzheimer’s, diabetes, cardiovascular disease etc. makes herbal drugs much sought for. In Ayurveda, the Indian System of Medicine, the ancient physicians advocated prevention of diseases as better option and several medicinal plants were used to prevent and cure a variety of diseases, including oncological ailments. Herbal drugs, dietary ingredients and edible plants have been suggested as cancer chemopreventive agents in view of their long history of human consumption and their ability to act at multiple sites and several of them are at various stages of clinical trial as potential cancer chemopreventive agents – as panacea for cancer. mohammad.younis50@yahoo.comReview512015Cancer,Chemotherapy,Ayurveda,Oncological Ailments,PanaceaMohammad Younis Bhat,Samina Farhat,Muzaffar Ahmad PukhtaSenior Resident, Department of Pharmacology, Government Medical College, Srinagar 190010 (J&K) India,Associate Professor and Head,Department of Pharmacology, Government Medical College, Srinagar 190010 (J&K) India,Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacology, Government Medical College, Srinagar 190010 (J&K) India.