Analysis content of the extracellular vesicles present in the plasma of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients for identification of molecular markers to treatment response

Abstract

The head and neck cancer has a worldwide incidence of 500,000 cases per year, and the squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) is the most common variant. Previous data have shown that induction chemotherapy (IC) with cisplatin and paclitaxel followed by chemoradiotherapy (CRT) based on cisplatin is safe, well tolerated and provides a higher overall survival for the patients with locally advanced HNSCC (III-IV stage). However, approximately 30% of these patients does not respond to this treatment and there are no means to segregate sensitive patients to resistant. The presence of molecular markers in bodily fluids, such as plasma, can assist on this segregation. The recent discovery of extracellular vesicles (EV) loading proteins and nucleic acids into various body fluids may indicate an alternative route for the identification of new specific markers present in the plasma of patients with HNSCC. Therefore, the rational of this study assumes that EVs present in the plasma of HNSCC patients can carry molecules useful to predict the treatment response and the contents present analysis in these EVs populations may allow the identification of new markers able to predict responders and non-responders to IC and /or CRT. (AU)