ABSTRACT
Esophageal cancer is one of the malignant tumors with a high morbidity and mortality in China. According to China's latest cancer report released by the National Cancer Center in 2019, the number of people suffering from esophageal cancer reached 246 000 in 2015, and the death toll reached 188 000. How to effectively treat esophageal cancer and improve the survival rate of patients is one of the most urgent problems in the field of medicine. Phosphatidylinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)/protein kinase B (Akt) signaling pathway is one of the most important signaling pathway for regulating cell survival, differentiation and apoptosis in the body. It also plays an important role in the occurrence and mechanism of various cancers. Recent studies have shown that the activation of PI3K/Akt signaling pathway is an important factor in regulating proliferation, apoptosis, cycle arrest, migration and invasion of esophageal cancer cells. The long-term clinical observation found that traditional Chinese medicine has a stable effect in the treatment of esophageal cancer and little side effects, especially in improving the quality of life of cancer patients and prolonging the survival period of patients. At present, it is a research hotspot to intervene this signal pathway with traditional Chinese medicine in the treatment of esophageal cancer, so as to explore its mechanism of action on esophageal cancer. This paper focused on literatures in CNKI and PubMed databases from 2009 to 2019, with PI3K/Akt signaling pathway, esophageal cancer and miRNA as the key words. A total of 226 literatures were retrieved, and 61 literatures relating to traditional Chinese medicine, esophageal cancer, miRNA and PI3K/Akt signaling pathway were sorted out and summarized. This paper reviewed the mechanism of PI3K/Akt signaling pathway in esophageal cancer, the relationship between miRNA and PI3K/Akt signaling pathway and esophageal cancer, and how traditional Chinese medicine can regulate the expressions of relevant proteins in PI3K/Akt signaling pathway to inhibit cell proliferation, affect cell growth cycle, induce cell apoptosis, inducing cell autophagy, inhibit tumor invasion and metastasis, inhibit angiogenesis. Finally, it can improve esophageal cancer to provide theoretical basis and scientific basis for the treatment of esophageal cancer with traditional Chinese medicine.