The validity of salivary microRNAs (hsa-miR-200a, hsamiR- 125a and hsa- miR-93) as oral squamous cell carcinoma biomarker

Abstract

Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma represents the vast majority of oral cancer it is a common malignanttumor with an increasing incidence. Around the world, the 5 year mortality rate of oral cancer is about 50%. Thusnovel biomarkers for early detection oral squamous cell carcinoma are needed. The level of three salivarymicroRNAs namely hsa-miR-200a, hsa-miR-125a and hsa- miR-93 were measured in saliva of patients with oralsquamous cell carcinoma and compared their levels in saliva of healthy control subjects to determine their potentialas oral cancer biomarker.Materials and methods: The level of these three microRNAs was measured by using revers transcription,preamplification and quantitative PCR.Results: Only miR-200a present in a significantly lower level (p<0.05) in the saliva of oral squamous cell carcinomapatients than in control. miR-200a was the strongest parameter (most affected by disease status) in the context ofdifferentiation between OSSC and healthy controls (having the highest ROC area of 0.781 which is significantly higherthan the area associated with equivocal test). Coming next in order of importance in the context of case-controldifferentiation was normalized CT values for hsa-miR-93, which has a reasonably high ROC (0.650), but failed to showstatically significance differences, P>0.05.Conclusions: The detection of miRNAs in saliva can be used as noninvasive and rapid diagnostic tool for thediagnosis of oral cancer