A Mechanistic Review of Methotrexate and Celecoxib as a Potential Metronomic Chemotherapy for Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

Abstract

The combination of low-dose methotrexate and celecoxib as metronomic chemotherapy (MCT) is a novel therapy, believed to act by modulating the immune response, inhibiting angiogenesis and its cytotoxic action, though the exact mechanism of action is unclear. Clinically, MCT was found to be very effective in delaying tumor progression in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in both curative and palliative settings. This review was aimed to give a brief insight into the mechanism of action and potential molecular alterations of MCT in the treatment of oral cancers taking into consideration the various in vivo and in vitro studies.

Keywords:

• Oral cavity
• oral cancer
• head and neck cancers
• chemotherapy
• apoptosis
• squamous cell carcinoma
• arachidonic acid
• nucleic acid

Acknowledgment

All the images and illustrations were created with the help of BioRender (BioRender.com).

Disclosure statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.