Liquid biopsy is the resource of molecular biomarkers in the clinical approaches of oral cavity cancer

Oral cancer OC originates from the oral cavity, such as the buccal mucosa, anterior tongue, floor of the mouth, hard palate, upper and lower gingiva, and retromolar trigone. It is estimated about ۹۰% of oral cancer is oral squamous cell carcinoma OSCC. Although therapeutic strategies are improved, the ۵-year survival rate of patients with OSCC in later stages remains poor at approximately ۵۰%. One of the main challenges in therapeutic approaches of OC is tumor heterogenicity, which provides drug resistance. Early diagnosis of OC is one of the valuable points that give this opportunity for better patient management. For this reason, detecting valid, accurate, and precise biomarkers can help us monitor OC patients during therapy or prognosis, in addition to early diagnosis. A biomarker is defined as a factor that indicates normal biological processes, pathogenic procedures, or pharmacologic responses according to the therapeutic intervention. In this way, liquid biopsy can analyze biomaterials such as proteins, metabolites, glycans, nucleic acids, and cells in body fluids and provide "real-time" information. Recent evidence showed tumor cell surface proteins, non-coding RNAs ncRNAs such as microRNAs miRNAs, glycome, extracellular vesicles EVs, cell-free DNAs cfDNAs, circulating tumor DNA tDNA, and circulating tumor cells CTCs are promising biomarker for screening of oral cancer patients for early diagnosis, therapeutic approaches, and prognosis. Recent studies have shown that blood, saliva, breast milk, and urine contain molecular biomarkers that can reflect the physiological and pathological status of the tumorigenesis process. Liquid biopsy is a non-invasive, available, economical, valuable, and trustworthy source for biomarker assessment that would be useful for predicting oral cancer metastasis and monitoring treatment efficacy. CTCs and tDNAs can distribute in our body fluid during the process of metastasis and circulate in the bloodstream. MiRNAs are small ncRNAs that regulate tumor suppressors or oncogenes that are reported to play a pivotal role in pathological pathways of tumorigenesis. Although biofluid markers such as ncRNAs are degraded in a short time after liquid biopsy, establishment of the definitive, valid, and accurate panels can be valuable in early diagnosis, therapeutic approaches, and prognosis of oral cavity patients because of the significant advantages of fluid biomarkers biofluids.

کلیدواژه ها:

Biomarkers ، Biofluid ، Oral cancer ، Saliva ، Oral squamous carcinoma