提到头颈部肿瘤，对于大多数人来讲可能比较陌生。它是按照人体部位来划分肿瘤的一种方法，已经被越来越多肿瘤专科医院和非专科医院所采纳。也就是说将肿瘤分为头颈部肿瘤、胸部肿瘤、腹部肿瘤，肢体肿瘤等等，而不是按各种系统进行分类。“头”即头部，“颈”即颈部，通俗讲就是“脖子”。那么，头颈部肿瘤包括那些那？它应包括颈部肿瘤、耳鼻喉科肿瘤以及口腔颌面部肿瘤三大部分。
头颈部肿瘤的病因和生活环境及个体的饮食习惯、嗜好密切相关的，如甲状腺肿瘤在沿海和内陆缺碘地区发病率较高，这可能与饮食中碘的含量有关。另外，甲状腺肿瘤女性患者居多，有研究表明与女性激素有关；喉部肿瘤的发生与吸烟和空气污染有关；而口腔肿瘤的发病与不良饮食、口腔卫生有关。所以改变不良嗜好、饮食习惯，有些肿瘤是可以预防的。
近日，来自Yeshiva大学和Einstei大学医院的研究人员发现miR-375这一微小RNA可以预测头部或/和颈部癌症患者的死亡概率，miR-375表达水平的高低与癌症患者死亡有着密切联系。相关研究论文发表在American Journal of Pathology期刊上。
工作人员从123名已经确诊为头颈部肿瘤患者体内肿瘤组织以及肿瘤团块附近的正常健康组织中采取样本，测量组织中RNA分子中的736个mricoRNA成员。结果发现所检测的microRNA中，头颈部癌症患者肿瘤组织中的miR-375表达水平要比周围正常健康组织低。
根据肿瘤组织和附近正常健康组织中miR-375表达水平的高低，研究人员将123名癌症患者进行分级（分级标准为肿瘤组织中miR-375表达水平/正常组织中miR-375表达水平），随访发现相比于比值较高的癌症患者，这一比值较低的癌症患者（如1/4比值）发生死亡的几率足足上升了13倍，并且发生远端器官转移的可能性也提高了9倍。这一结论有力地证实了MiR-375可以当作是一种预测头颈部肿瘤患者最终结局的生物标记。
人体在发生病变时，体内的微小RNA成分会发生改变，这种改变可以通过血样检测及时发现，对于癌症病人来说，如果能早期发现癌症在微小RNA中的先兆，并及时切除病灶的话，生存率可以直接升到百分之百，使得癌症不再是不治之症。或许利用微小RNA进行癌症预警，更可以在癌症发病以前就发现身体的异常倾向。（生物谷Bioon.com）
doi:10.1016/j.ajpath.2011.12.004
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Low-Level Expression of miR-375 Correlates with Poor Outcome and Metastasis While Altering the Invasive Properties of Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinomas
Thomas Harris, Lizandra Jimenez, Nicole Kawachi, Jian-Bing Fan, Jing Chen, Tom Belbin, Andrew Ramnauth, Olivier Loudig, Christian E. Keller, Richard Smith,et al.
Small, noncoding microRNAs (miRNAs) have been shown to be abnormally expressed in every tumor type examined. We used comparisons of global miRNA expression profiles of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) samples and adjacent normal tissue to rank those miRNAs that were most significantly altered in our patient population. Rank Consistency Score analysis revealed miR-375 to have the most significantly lowered miRNA levels in tumors relative to matched adjacent nonmalignant tissue from the same patient among 736 miRNAs that were evaluated. This result has been previously observed by other groups; however, we extend this finding with the unique observation that low miR-375 expression levels correlate significantly with cancer survival and distant metastasis. In a study of 123 primary HNSCC patients using multivariable Cox proportional hazard ratios (HR) and 95% confidence intervals (CI), both death from disease (HR: 12.8, 95% CI: 3 to 49) and incidence of distant metastasis (HR: 8.7, 95% CI: 2 to 31) correlated with lower expression levels of miR-375 regardless of the site or stage of the tumor. In addition, we found that oral cavity tumor cell lines (eg, UMSCC1 and UMSCC47) overexpressing miR-375 were significantly less invasive in vitro than their matched empty vector controls. We conclude that miR-375 represents a potential prognostic marker of poor outcome and metastasis in HNSCC and that it may function by suppressing the tumor's invasive properties.
