Response to Comments by Dr Gholami on “A Systematic Review of Iran’s Medicinal Plants With Anticancer Effects”

Dear Editor,

We think that before publishing a letter to the editor in response to an already published article, it is much better that the comments of the letter to the editor be sent to the authors of the article of interest and then both comments and replies, if any, be published.

However, we thank Dr Gholami for his comments on our article titled “A Systematic Review of Iran’s Medicinal Plants With Anticancer Effects.” In response to Dr Gholami, we have to state that in Table 1, we have used his reference because umbelliprenin as a sesquiterpene is produced in various Ferula species.

Also we have used shoot for the “part(s) used” because according to Gharaei et al, ¹ the ethanol extracts of the Ferula gummosa leaf and flower were examined. In another study, by Eslami Jadidi et al, ² the aerial parts of plant were used to evaluate cytotoxicity effects. So we used shoots for the “part(s) used.” In Table 2, we intended to show that umbelliprenin has anticancer effect. However, because of the table format we had to add a plant source for umbelliprenin. So we used the plant source that we had already used in the results. However, it was better to refer to the plant source as it had been already referred to in the referenced article. So, it is better to change the plant name (from Ferula gummosa to Ferula szowitsiana) for the references 125 and 126.

We thank the editor and Dr Gholami again for their guidance and attention.