Anacardium occidentale is characterized as a medicinal plant, member of the Anacardiaceae family. Different parts of the plant have multiple pharmaceutical properties, which are related to their derivatives and high levels of secondary metabolites. Thus, the aim of the study is to identify evidence available in the literature about the herbal properties of A. occidentale in articles published in the last ten years. This is an integrative literature review using descriptors in the Virtual Health Library (VHL) used in the PubMed and SciELO databases. In such a way, the research resulted in 603 articles and, after employing the inclusion and exclusion criteria, totaled 51 publications for the full analysis. 97 different properties of A. occidentale were found: anti-inflammatory; antioxidant; antimicrobial; antidiabetic; healing; analgesic; effects on the digestive tract; in the autonomic nervous, respiratory and blood system; hypotensive and cardio inhibitory effects; protective against male sexual dysfunction; antimutagenic, antimetastatic and clastogenic; odontological use; toxic and non-toxic effect and others. The antimicrobial effect was the main one to be reported, however, its applicability in phytotherapy is diverse, having a significant capacity to act in pharmacological treatments if there is adequate contribution to research and development of new drugs.

Anacardium occidentale Linn is a medicinal plant, member of the family Anacardiaceae. Several parts of the plant have therapeutic properties, enabling its use as an herbal medicine. Thus, this review identified the available literature data on the herbal properties of A. occidentale, considering articles published in the last twelve years. This is an integrative literature review using descriptors of the Virtual Health Library (VHL), considering the PubMed and SciELO databases. The search resulted in 694 articles and, after employing the inclusion and exclusion criteria, totaled 66 publications for full analysis. We found 98 different properties of A. occidentale: anti-inflammatory; antioxidant; antimicrobial; antidiabetic; healing; analgesic; effects on the digestive tract and on the autonomic nervous, respiratory, and blood systems; hypotensive and cardioinhibitory effects; protective against male sexual dysfunction; antimutagenic, antimetastatic, and clastogenic; odontological use; toxic and nontoxic effects; and others. The main effects were antioxidant and antimicrobial. However, the phytotherapeutic use of A. occidentale is wide, requiring further contributions to herbal medicine research and development for promoting and integrating traditional medicine.