Background: The necessity of prediction and treatment outcome improvement of HNSCC needs to find new biomarkers. miRNAs seem to be good candidate for that.
Objective: Analysis of selected 5 miRNAs (let-7d, miR-18a, miR-21, miR-205 and miR-375) as potential biomarkers that allows to distinguish tumor and healthy tissue taken from HNSCC patients.
Methods: Tumor and normal epithelial tissues were obtained from 75 HNSCC patients to analyze selected miRNAs.
Results: Analysis indicated significant increase of miR-21 and miR-205 in tumor when compared with healthy tissue (p= 0.0069 and p= 0.0029, respectively). There was a significant correlation between let-7d and miR-18a. let-7d was down-regulated in 34.67% cases, miR-18a in 29.33%, miR-21 in 20%, miR-205 in 30.67% and miR-375 in 52% cases. At the same time over-expression of let-7d was detected in 18.67% cases, miR-18a in 22.67%, miR-21 in 48%, miR-205 in 41.33% and miR-375 in 52% cases. There was no correlation between miRNA expression and clinical data and the course of illness.
Conclusion: Our study indicated that miR-21 and miR-205 can be used to analyze the clarity of surgical margins and that concomitant changes in the expression of let-7 and miR-18a in tumor tissues might represent important future markers indicating the biology of HNSCC. These observations will help with developing personalization for HNSCC patients' treatment.
Keywords: Cancer; HNSCC; biomarker; miRNA profile; qRT-PCR.