Preventive and therapeutic role of Tanshinone ⅡA in hepatology.

Liver diseases cause serious public health problems because of their high global prevalence and poor long-term clinical outcomes. With its mild and broad therapeutic efficacy, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) has played an important role in the prevention and treatment of liver diseases in China for hundreds of years. Tanshinone IIA (TIIA), a major component extracted from the traditional herbal medicine Salvia miltiorrhiza Bunge, has been broadly studied for its multiple biological activities, including antiangiogenic, antioxidant, anti-inflammatory and anticancer properties. In this article, we focus on the effects of TIIA on the development of liver diseases, including hepatic injury, fatty liver, hepatic fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC), as well as the mechanism underlying TIIA and its new formulations and carriers in order to provide a reference for its further study and clinical therapeutic use in liver diseases.