Abstract: Objective To study the effect of docetaxel and curcumin on proliferation and apoptosis of human lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549, and to investigate whether the combination of docetaxel with curcumin can strengthen antitumous effect and decrease toxic side effect or not. Methods The lung adenocarcinoma cell line A549 was cultured in vitro. The growth inhibition ratio, morphologic changes and apoptosis index were measured by MTT test, Giemsa staining and flow cytometry, respectively. Results MTT results suggested that curcumin effectively inhibited the proliferation of A549 cells. Further more the inhibitory ratio of the combination of curcumin with docetaxel group was statistically higher than the curcumin group (P<0.01).The apoptosis body could also be found by Giemsa staining. It was confirmed by FACS that docetaxel and curcumin can both induce cell apoptosis. When the two drugs were com-bined,the inductive effect on cell apoptosis became more obvious and was in concentration-dependent patterns. Conclusion Curcumin can synergistically inhibit the proliferation of A549 cell with the combination of docetaxel. The combination of curcumin and docetaxel enhanced the effect and decrease the attenuation in chemotherapy.