Association of the Mir-499 Polymorphisms with Oral Cavity and Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma in an Iranian Population

Background: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the most common oral malignancy. Some evidence indicated that there is a correlation between microRNA single nucleotide polymorphisms and the risk of oral cancer. The aim of the current study was to investigate the association between mir-499 polymorphism with the risk of oral cavity and oropharyngeal SCC in a subset of Iranian Population.

Materials And Methods: In this case-control pilot study total of 112 participants including 56 histopathlogically confirmed oral and oropharyngeal SCC patients and 56 age- and sex-matched controls were included The mir-499 rs3746444 T/C polymorphism was detected using polymerase chain reaction-restriction fragment length polymorphism method. The comparisons of the distribution of the allele and genotype frequencies were performed using Chi-square test, and < 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

Results: The result of the present study indicated that the frequency distribution of mir-499 was not significantly different between cases and controls ( > 0.05). We also did not find any significant association between the risk of the cancer and mir-499 polymorphisms in the recessive (Odds ratio [OR]: 6.60; 95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.77-56.74; = 0.11) and dominant (OR: 1; 95% CI: 0.37-2.74; = 1) inheritance models even after adjustment for smoking.

Conclusion: The results of the present study indicated that the polymorphisms of mir-499 are not associated with the risk of oral and oropharyngeal SCC in Iranian population. However, further large scale studies are needed to validate our findings.