Overexpression of miRNA 4451 is Associated With a Poor Survival of Patients With Hypopharyngeal Cancer After Surgery With Postoperative Radiotherapy

Hypopharyngeal cancer (HC) is the most common subset of head and neck cancers. These tumors often have an aggressive clinical outcome characterized by local invasion and regional nodal metastasis. Upregulated miRNAs might be useful as biomarkers for prognosis and molecular targets for these tumors. We determined tumor expression of candidate miRNAs using microarray in 8 HC patients and validated in 372 HC patients. We also used paired tumorous and mucosal tissue to verify the miRNA expression. Log-rank test and Cox model were used to evaluate the survival; and Harrell's C-index was used to compare concordance of Cox models. Our results indicated 7 miRNAs aberrantly expressed in HC. Three of these candidate miRNAs (miRNA-4415, miRNA-200a, and miRNA-30b) were selected for further qRT-PCR validation and all of them were frequently found upregulated in HC tumors; with miR-4451 being the most differentially expressed. Moreover, high expression of miR-4451 was positively correlated with advanced tumor stage and increased mortality risk (HR: 1.6, 95% CI: 1.2–2.3; adjusted HR: 1.5, adjusted 95% CI: 1.1–2.1). Finally, significantly higher expression of miR-4451 in tumors compared to in fresh adjacent normal tissues indicates an oncogenic role of miR-4451 in this tumor. Upregulated miR-4451 in HC samples were frequently found and is significantly associated with advanced stage and poor survival of HC, which may indicate an association of this miRNA with the carcinogenesis process in this tumor site; and they could serve as a prognostic biomarker as well as help develop potential new targets for therapy.