Value of HIF-1α as an independent prognostic indicator in oral squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Evaluation of: Eckert AW, Schutze A, Lautner MHW, Taubert H, Schubert J, Bilkenroth U. HIF-1α is a prognostic marker in OSCC. Int. J. Biol. Markers 25(2), 87-92 (2010). Oral squamous cell carcinoma is the most common cancer in the oral cavity, accounting for 95% of all malignancies. Predicting prognosis and survival of oral cancer patients has been challenging. To date, there are no molecular markers that can be used reliably in routine clinical practice, other than clinical and histological parameters. Numerous molecules have been tested in order to achieve the above objective. Hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF)-1α is a molecule that is mainly activated under hypoxic conditions. According to the article under evaluation, tumors negatively or weakly expressing HIF-1α had a 5-year disease-specific survival of 80% or more, whereas the disease-specific survival in cases with moderate or strong HIF-1α expression was only 49.4 and 33.6%, respectively. The mean disease-specific survival time was 54 months for patients whose tumors showed negative or weak HIF-1α expression, whereas patients with moderate or strong HIF-1α expression survived on average only 38 months (p = 0.001). HIF-1α may have a role to play in diagnostic and clinical practice to predict prognosis of oral cancer, provided the findings are confirmed by more reliable investigations in addition to immunohistochemistry analysis.

Impact of Histological and Molecular Parameters on Prognosis of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma: Analysis of 290 Cases

“…HIF-1 α is a molecule that is mainly activated under hypoxic conditions and has been proposed to play a role in malignant transformation of OSF and may be possible to use as a marker [ 10 , 11 ]. Santos et al [ 59 ] have demonstrated by IHC on 66 tissue microarrays that high HIF-1 α expression was associated with local disease-free survival ( p = 0.013) through chi-square and Fisher exact test and multivariate logistic regression.…”

“…In our previous studies, we have shown that there is a significant expression of molecular markers such as hypoxia-inducible factor-1 α (HIF-1 α ) [ 10 , 11 ], periostin [ 12 ], matrix metalloproteinase-9 (MMP-9) [ 13 ], vascular endothelial growth factor-C (VEGF-C) [ 14 , 15 ], epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) [ 16 ], and β -catenin [ 16 ] in OSCC and their ability to serve as potential molecules for predicting metastasis. Further, it has been stated that the use of molecular markers, together with traditional histological parameters, improves comprehensive management of patients with OSCC [ 17 ].…”

Leptin acts on neoplastic behavior and expression levels of genes related to hypoxia, angiogenesis, and invasiveness in oral squamous cell carcinoma

“…41 High HIF-1α expression in OSCC can be regarded as an independent prognostic biomarker. 42 In this study, HIF-1α mRNA expression was higher in OSCC than in OM.…”

Investigation of the Prognostic Role of Carbonic Anhydrase 9 (CAIX) of the Cellular mRNA/Protein Level or Soluble CAIX Protein in Patients with Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma

“…One important feature of tumor biology is tumor hypoxia and, in particular, the activity of the transcription factor hypoxia-inducible factor (HIF). The prognostic relevance of the α-subunit of HIF1 in OSCC patients has already been demonstrated by our group [25,44,45] and others [46,47]. Zhou and co-workers showed an association of overexpression of HIF-1α with tumor size, tumor stage, lymph node metastasis, and overall survival.…”