Up-regulated expression of Dicer reveals poor prognosis in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma

Abstract

Conclusions: Increased expression of Dicer may be a prognostic biomarker for patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). Objectives: Recent studies have shown that many microRNAs (miRNAs) play an important role in the development and progression of human cancers. Dicer, one of the most important enzymes of the miRNA machinery, performs the final step of biogenesis of miRNAs. This study aimed to investigate the impact of Dicer expression on patient survival in human LSCC. Methods: We detected the expression of Dicer in larynx tissue specimens from 76 LSCC samples and 26 polyps by immunohistochemistry. The clinicopathological and prognostic significance of Dicer expression was investigated in LSCC. Results: Our data showed that the expression of Dicer was significantly higher in the LSCC than in the polyp tissue specimens. Moreover, the expression level of Dicer was significantly associated with the pTNM stage and tumor lymph node metastasis. Kaplan–Meier survival analyses revealed a strong association between tumor Dicer expression and the survival of the patients with LSCC.

Keywords::

• Larynx
• cancer
• metastasis
• biomarker

Acknowledgments

This work was supported in part by a grant from the First Affiliated Hospital of Anhui Medical University and by a key program of the Educational Department, Anhui Province (KJ2012A162), China.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.