Hsa-mir-556-5p: a prognostic factor in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Around 5% of tumors develop in the head and neck area, with nearly 50% of those appearing in the oral cavity. Oral cancer ranks as the sixth leading cause of cancer-related deaths. These figures illustrate the severity of the disease and emphasize the importance of raising awareness and providing early screening to detect and manage it. The treatment and prognosis of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) remain a significant challenge. This highlights the need for more effective treatments and strategies to improve the prognosis for individuals diagnosed with OSCC. In recent years, there has been significant progress in using microRNAs (miRNAs) as diagnostic and prognostic markers for cancer, making them a highly useful and valuable tool.

For this research, we cultured and maintained cell lines for hypopharyngeal cancer (FaDu), oral cancer (Cal 27), and PDL cells. We then used quantitative real-time polymerase chain reaction (qRT-PCR) to confirm the expression levels of the potential biomarker, has-miR-556-5p

During the discovery phase, we identified hsa-miR-556-5p as being differentially expressed, with a statistically significant increase in its expression level. More recently, we used real-time PCR to confirm that hsa-miR-556-5p is markedly up-regulated in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC). Our study suggests that hsa-miR-556-5p has the potential to be a new and innovative biomarker for OSCC.

The candidate miRNA can be chosen as a promising biomarker for predicting patient outcomes and even for early detection of the disease in clinical settings.