Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, Proteins and Cytokines Related to Inflammatory Microenvironment: Biomarkers for Cancer Risk and Clinical Outcome of Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Patients

Smoking or human papilloma virus (HPV) was suggested to be the causative agents of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). Genetic are also likely to play a role since only a proportion of smokers or HPV carriers get cancer. Recently, we found that cigarette smoke induced massive cell death, altered cellular phenotype and gene expression profile and these were related to single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). A possible role of the chronic inflammatory microenvironment, individual genetic variation and its association with cancer risk, tumour recurrence or clinical outcome of HNSCC was investigated. Circulating plasma proteins or cytokines and SNPs in characterized genes were used as biomarkers for this purpose.

Statistically significant differences in frequency of SNPs related to cell death and inflammation were found between 174 HNSCC patients and 245 healthy controls (p<0,05). The level of circulating plasma C-reactive protein and tumour necrosis factor alpha at the diagnosis was both clinically and statistically significantly related to tumour recurrence and survival time of these patients. Thus, SNPs and circulating plasma protein or cytokine related to inflammatory microenvironment might be used as biomarker for cancer risk and clinical outcome of HNSCC patients.