[An effective biological marker to detect oral squamous cancer cells--expression patterns of CK 10, 17, 19 and SCCA mRNA--].

A variety of techniques have been employed for the detection of tumor cells in the lymph nodes of patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Molecular analysis has been applied to detect metastases and several reports have presented examinations of tumor markers, but no target gene that is completely reliable as a molecular biological tumor marker has been found. This study investigated whether a marker exists that is effective to detect OSCC. A total of 134 samples (biopsy and surgical specimens) from 102 OSCC patients were analyzed. Expression patterns of Cytokeratin (CK) 10, 17, 19 and SCCA mRNA in the normal oral mucosa and OSCC samples were examined using RT-PCR. Statistical analyses showed that significant differences existed in expressions of CK 10, 17, 19 and SCCA between OSCC and the normal mucosa (p<0.05). No correlation was observed between the degrees of histological differentiation of the tumor and CK 17 expression. The CK 17 expression also showed no significant differences depending on sites of primary tumors. Among the CK 10, 17, 19 and SCCA investigated, only CK 17 showed high sensitivity and negative predictive value (NPV). CK 17 might be a good biomarker because of the performance of RT-PCR in detecting mRNA of CK 17 with such high sensitivity and NPV. Further studies using a larger number of OSCC patients and other CKs should be undertaken to establish CK 17 as a useful biomarker.