Anticancer Activity of Schiff Base Metal Complexes Against MCF-7 Breast Cancer Cell Line

According to the World Health Organization, breast cancer is the cancer that affects the largest number of people each year, especially women. Millions of women are diagnosed with it each year, and hundreds of thousands die from it. Research into new types of drugs, including metal complexes, including those containing tetradentate Schiff bases as ligands, offers a chance to reduce this number. Various cell lines are being used to test their effectiveness in cancer therapy, with the MCF-7 cancer cell line being the most commonly used. A literature search was conducted in four major databases: PubMed, SciELO. The Boolean operator “and” was used to refine the search strategy, combining the terms Schiff base, breast cancer, MCF-7 and metal complexes. Studies published between 2020 and 2025 investigating the cytotoxic activity of metal complexes with Schiff base ligands on the MCF-7 breast cancer cell line were included in the analysis. Articles were considered eligible if they were written in English. As a result of the database search, 37 scientific articles were selected and divided into three groups based on the ligand structure. The largest group of articles described the synthesis, structure, and anticancer activity of metal complexes with ligands based on the salicylaldehyde structure. These were included in the first group of complexes described. The second, extremely interesting and promising group of compounds consisted of metal complexes with ligands containing a sulfur atom. The last group included metal complexes with Schiff base ligands that were not included in the two previously mentioned groups. As indicated by the research results contained in the reviewed articles, Schiff base metal complexes constitute an interesting group of compounds characterized by a range of activities, including anticancer activity, which may in the future be used in anticancer therapy. They may also represent a cheaper and more effective alternative to platinum-based drugs.