Abstract
BACKGROUND: Early diagnosis and treatment can improve the survival rates of patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC). Therefore, it is necessary to discover new biomarkers for laryngeal cancer screening and early diagnosis. METHODS: We collected fasting plasma from LSCC patients and healthy volunteers, as well as cancer and para-carcinoma tissues from LSCC patients, and performed quantitative detection of amino acid levels using liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. We used overall analysis and multivariate statistical analysis to screen out the statistically significant differential amino acids in the plasma and tissue samples, conducted receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis of the differential amino acids to evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the differential amino acids, and finally determined the diagnostic value of amino acids for laryngeal cancer. Additionally, we identified amino acids in the plasma and tissue samples that are valuable for the early diagnosis of laryngeal cancer classified according to the tumor-node-metastasis (TNM) classification. RESULTS: Asparagine (Asp) and homocysteine (Hcy) were two amino acids of common significance in plasma and tissue samples, and their specificity and sensitivity analysis showed that they may be new biomarkers for the diagnosis and treatment of LSCC. According to the TNM staging system, phenylalanine (Phe) and isoleucine (Ile) were screened out in the plasma of LSCC patients at early (I and II) and advanced (III and IV) stages; ornithine hydrochloride (Orn), glutamic acid (Glu), and Glycine (Gly) were selected in the tissue. These dysregulated amino acids found in LSCC patients may be useful as clinical biomarkers for the early diagnosis and screening of LSCC.