Simple Summary
Diagnosing head and neck cancers and predicting the aggressiveness and metastatic potential of these tumours currently constitutes a significant therapeutic challenge. Analysing tumour markers associated with and specific to various types and locations of laryngeal carcinomas is therefore an approach that allows for rapid and effective diagnosis. The aim of this paper is to present selected molecular factors that may be considered useful in the diagnosis of laryngeal carcinomas. We believe that their use in clinical practice may, in many cases, have a positive impact on specifying or justifying the diagnosis and predicting the aggressiveness of detected neoplastic lesions.
Abstract
Laryngeal squamous carcinoma is a major type of head and neck cancer. Despite a wide range of treatment options, it remains a challenge to identify which ones are the most effective for which groups of patients. One solution is to analyse selected biomarkers. In this paper, biomarkers are divided into distinctive groups according to the molecular pathways analysed or specific molecules within the cell or in tissue fluids. The paper provides a description of these groups, including genetic and apoptosis-associated factors, factors regulating angiogenesis, cell structure regulators, immune factors in the form of programmed cell death ligand (PD-L1), hormone receptors, molecules involved in growth factor pathways, and cell cycle regulators. Representative examples are discussed for each of these groups, indicating their potential usefulness in staging, assessing tumour aggressiveness, and making a prognosis.