Identifying biomarkers that distinguish recurrent from non-recurrent Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OSCC)

Abstract

Cancer biomarkers have emerged as highly attractive targets for both therapy as well as diagnostics. Identifying potential biomarkers that can be used in disease diagnosis and prognosis have been the goal of cancer researchers since many years. Oral cancer is one of the most common cancers in the world, especially in India, having a very high death rate. Detection of this cancer in the early stages is rarely done. A range of potential biomarkers have been identified for OSCC, but further study using better scoring systems than the existing ones are required to understand their prognostic value in the disease. This study is aimed to investigate the potential use of biomarkers for the diagnosis and prognosis of OSCC, a common and deadly cancer, particularly in India. In this study I have tried to study the biomarker profiles of 32 patients with OSCC using two different scoring methods – positive cell counting method and percentage area of DAB stain detection method. I have selected five biomarkers that have been previously reported to have clinical significance in OSCC. EGFR and p53 was observed to be high in the non-recurrent group using both the methods. As reported previously in other studies, PD-L1 did not seem to have any prognostic significance in recurrence of OSCC. PCNA and CD44 did not show any significant difference in expression between the recurrent and non recurrent groups. Interestingly, the study suggests that cell counting method of analysis was a better method than percentage area of DAB stain detection method, in terms of DAB stain detection, to detect the expression of nuclear markers and markers showing heterogeneous pattern of expression. Overall, this study highlights the need for further research to better understand the prognostic value of potential biomarkers for OSCC, and emphasizes on the need for developing more appropriate scoring methods for accurate analysis of biomarker expression.