Baikal Skullcap in Integrative Oncology: Targeting Cancer and Immune Signalling

The herb Scutellaria baicalensis, also called Baikal or Chinese skullcap, is traditionally used to treat various ailments, such as diarrhoea, insomnia, hypertension and inflammation. Today, modern medicine continues to use this herb to treat those ailments, even extending to cancers.
Modern pharmacological characterisation of Baikal skullcap has identified four main bioactive components in this herb: baicalin, baicalein, wogonoside and wogonin. Impressively, each of these compounds has been found to elicit anticancer activities through a myriad of mechanisms, depending on the type of cancer, which ranges from prostate to brain cancers.

For example, treating mice with prostate cancer with Baikal skullcap extract or baicalein shrank tumour size by half in just a few weeks. Further research showed that baicalein and wogonin could stop androgen signalling essential for the growth of prostate cancer cells. Baicalein and wogonin can even sensitise prostate cancer cells to being attacked by the immune system, specifically by cytokines that immune cells secrete. This sensitisation effect has also been observed in breast cancer cells exposed to wogonin. Other compounds like baicalin and baicalein have been found to inhibit the β-catenin and oestrogen signalling of breast cancer cells, respectively, which prevented the growth and spread of breast tumours in animal models.

Importantly, early-stage clinical trials in cancer patients have found no significant toxicity when Baikal skullcap was administered alongside standard therapies. One trial even reported enhanced immune status in chemotherapy patients co-treated with Baikal skullcap – a particularly valuable finding given that chemotherapy often weakens the immune system and quality of life. By supporting immune resilience during chemotherapy, patients can maintain better health to give their bodies a stronger chance to fend off the cancer.

For readers interested in the broader health effects of this plant, we explore them in more detail here.

“Baikal Skullcap (Scutellaria baicalensis), Mint family (Lamiaceae).” by Andrey Zharkikh is licensed under CC BY 2.0