Department of Integrative Oncology, British Columbia Cancer Research Centre, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Department of Statistics, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Br J Cancer. 2023 Nov;129(11):1810-1817. doi: 10.1038/s41416-023-02405-9. Epub 2023 Oct 5.
Survival rates for oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) have remained poor for decades, a fact largely attributable to late-stage diagnoses and high recurrence rates. We report analysis of serum miRNA expression in samples from patients with high-risk oral lesions (HRL, including OSCC/carcinoma in situ lesions) and healthy non-cancer controls, with the aim of non-invasively detecting primary or recurrent disease before it is clinically evident.
Discovery, test, and validation sets were defined from a total of 468 serum samples (305 HRL and 163 control samples). Samples were analysed using multiple qRT-PCR platforms.
A two-miRNA classifier comprised of miR-125b-5p and miR-342-3p was defined following discovery and test analyses. Analysis in an independent validation cohort reported sensitivity and specificity of ~74% for this classifier. Significantly, when this classifier was applied to serial serum samples taken from patients both before treatment and during post-treatment surveillance, it identified recurrence an average of 15 months prior to clinical presentation.
These results indicate this serum miRNA classifier is effective as a simple, non-invasive monitoring tool for earlier detection of recurrent disease when lesions are typically smaller and amenable to a wider array of treatment options to improve survival.
几十年来，口腔鳞状细胞癌（OSCC）的生存率一直很差，这主要归因于晚期诊断和高复发率。我们报告了对高危口腔病变（HRL，包括 OSCC/原位癌病变）患者和健康非癌症对照者血清中 miRNA 表达的分析，旨在在临床明显之前非侵入性地检测原发性或复发性疾病。
总共定义了 468 个血清样本（305 个 HRL 和 163 个对照样本）的发现、测试和验证集。使用多个 qRT-PCR 平台对样品进行分析。
在发现和测试分析之后，定义了由 miR-125b-5p 和 miR-342-3p 组成的两个 miRNA 分类器。在独立的验证队列中的分析报告了该分类器的敏感性和特异性约为 74%。值得注意的是，当将该分类器应用于从治疗前和治疗后监测期间采集的患者的连续血清样本时，它平均在临床症状出现前 15 个月就识别出了复发。
这些结果表明，当病变通常较小且更适合广泛的治疗选择以提高生存率时，该血清 miRNA 分类器是一种有效的简单、非侵入性监测工具，可更早地检测复发疾病。
