Research progress on induced autophagy for the treatment of oral cancer

Oral cancer has a high degree of malignancy, easily recurs, readily metastasizes and poor progonsis. Autophagy is a catabolic process induced in cells under stressful conditions. In recent years, studies have found that the activation of autophagy in epithelial cells can inhibit carcinogenesis and activate pathways such as mTOR and MAPK to activate autophagy in oral cancer cells and inhibit their survival. Inducing autophagy can degrade eukaryotic initiation factor 4E protein and inhibit oral cancer metastasis. Inducing autophagy in oral cancer cells can inhibit their proliferation and promote their apoptosis. Adding autophagy inducers to the treatment can help improve its efficacy and patient survival compared with chemoradiotherapy alone. In addition, the induction of autophagy in oral cancer cells can improve the body's immune function and enhance the efficacy of oral cancer immunotherapy. This article summarizes the relationship between autophagy and oral cancer and the role of induced autophagy in the treatment of oral cancer with the combined application of chemoradiotherapy and immunotherapy. The goal is to provide new ideas for inducing autophagy during the treatment of oral cancer, improving the therapeutic effect of oral cancer and the survival rate of patients. At present, the mechanism of action of induced autophagy in the treatment of oral cancer is not clear. Future research should study its mechanism of action, improve its therapeutic effect on oral cancer and develop autophagy inducers to accurately regulate and induce autophagy during the treatment of oral cancer.