Nanocurcumin in Oral Squamous Cancer Cells and Its Efficacy as a Chemo-Adjuvant

Oral squamous cell carcinoma is the sixth most common cancer worldwide. Despite the available treatment, the survival rate is poor. The addition of agents to make chemotherapeutics safer and more effective is important. Curcumin is a common Indian spice that has shown anticarcinogenic properties. It has been possible to overcome its poor bio-availability using nanotechnology. We aimed to investigate the adjuvant effect of nanocurcumin (NC ~ 200 nm size) treatment on cetuximab (epidermal growth factor receptor inhibitor) in oral squamous cancer cells (KB 3-1 cell). Cancer cells were cultured and treated for 24 hours with cetuximab and NC, in various doses to find the drugs' half-maximal inhibitory concentration (IC₅₀). Experiments were conducted with a combination dose of both and sensitization treatment with NC before cetuximab with cytotoxicity assessment by 3-(4,5-dimethylthiazol-2-yl)-2,5-diphenyltetrazolium bromide assay. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to compare different treatment groups. We found a concentration-dependent cancer cell death with NC, which was significant compared to cetuximab (p <0.001). The combination treatment group had highly significant cell death (p <0.0001) compared to a single drug, and the NC sensitization caused substantial cell death compared to a single cetuximab treatment (p<0.01). Our study findings indicate the potential chemo-adjuvant effect of NC in oral cancer.