Critical pathways of oral squamous cell carcinoma: molecular biomarker and therapeutic intervention.

The rapid growth of oral cancer is a significant concern, especially in developing countries due to the advanced lifestyle and 5-year survival despite advanced multimodality of cancer care. The poor modality might be due to the detection of disease in the advanced stage. Early detection and development of novel therapies can improve oral cancer patient survival. The PI3K/AKT/mTOR and RAS-RAF-MEK-ERK are very extensively exploited pathways in oral cancer. These pathways are very critical in the progression of tumorigenesis in oral cancer. This review focuses on the association of Ras/Raf/MEK/ERK and PI3K/AKT/mTOR pathways in terms of protein expression level, genetic mutation, and therapeutic intervention in oral cancer.