Objective To explore the effect of ilomastat combined with chemotherapeutic drug capecitabine on human laryngeal cancer hep-2 cell .Methods hep-2 cells were treated by ilomastat and capecitabine alone and their combination .The untreated group was taken as the control group .The proliferation activity of the hep-2 cells was analyzed by MTT assay ,and the Jin′s Q was adopt-ed to assess the characters of combination medication of ilomastat and capecitabine ;the expression level of MMP-9mRNA in hep-2 cell was detected by RT-PCR;the apoptosis rate of hep-2 cell was detected by the flow cytometry .Results Both ilomastat and capecitabine had the inhibiting effect on the proliferation of hep-2 cell ,and the combination of ilomastat and capecitabine increased the cell inhibitory rate(P<0 .05) ,the interaction between ilomastat and capecitabine was the synergistic effect when the combined concentration was (8+100)μg/mL ,while the interaction between ilomastat and capecitabine was the additive action when the com-bined concentration was (40+ 400)μg/mL ;RT-PCR analysis showed that compared with control group ,the expression level of MMP-9mRNA in the single ilomastat group and the combination group were both decreased (P< 0 .05) ,and the expression of MMP-9mRNA in the combination group was lower than that in the single ilomastat group (P<0 .05);the flow cytometry indicated that the apoptosis rate of hep-2 cell in the single ilomastat group and the single capecitabine group were both higher than that in the control group(P<0 .05) ,and the apoptosis rate in the combination group was higher than that in the other groups (P<0 .05) .Con-clusion Ilomastat combined with capecitabine can obviously enhance the inhibition and apoptosis-induced ability of single drug on laryngeal cancer hep-2 cell ,the action mechanism of ilomastst is down-regulation of the expression level of the MMP-9 mRNA .