Tongue Squamous Cell Carcinoma Prognosis Can Be Effectively Predicted by LncRNA LIPH4: A Prospective Study

Purpose: LIPH4 has been identified as an oncogenic lncRNA in different malignant diseases. This research aims to elucidate the link between the expression of LIPH4 and its prognostic application in tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC).
Methods: To assess the expression of LIPH4, 142 TSCC and normal cases, respectively, which met the selection parameters, were used for qRT-PCR analysis. Furthermore, the association of LIPH4 expression with TSCC’s clinicopathological features was identified via the Chi-square test. Moreover, the Kaplan–Meier test was used for calculating the survival rates, whereas the association of patient survival with prognostic factors was assessed with the help of Cox proportional hazard analysis.
Results: The data indicated upregulated LIPH4 levels in TSCC samples than healthy samples. Furthermore, LIPH4 expression was associated with TSCC differentiation and stage, where increased expression indicated reduced disease-free survival (DFS) and overall survival (OS) rates. Additionally, advanced TSCC individuals with enhanced LIPH4 expression had reduced OS and DFS rates than those with reduced LIPH4 expression. Serum LIPH4 could be a promising diagnostic bio-index for TSCC, with an area under the curve of 0.8920 (95% CI = 0.8540– 0.9299). These data revealed that the overexpression of LIPH4 might be a substantial prognostic factor for independently predicting the OS and DFS rates of TSCC patients.
Conclusion: Altogether, this research revealed that the expression of LIPH4 expression is closely associated with TSCC progression and, therefore, can be employed as a biomarker for its prognosis.

Keywords: lncRNA, LIPH4, biomarker, tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC)