According to the research from the University of Eastern Finland, the expression of SIP1 protein in pharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma tumors often indicates an advanced tumour stage, a high risk of recurrence and a poor prognosis. Their study demonstrates that SIP1 is a potential new prognostic factor for clinical use. This finding was published in BMC Cancer.

Pharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma (PSCC) is a rather rare disease and its incidence has been increasing over the past three decades. The prognosis is one of the poorest of all the head and neck squamous cell carcinimas and it has not improved to any significant extent. In addition, Epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) is a complex cellular process which is not only crucial for embryogenesis, but it is also activated during tumour progression enabling tumour cells to become invasive and to metastases.

In this study, for the first time, Scientists try to assess the role of EMT-related transcription factors in PSCC. The immunohistochmical expressions of transcription factors SNAI1, TWIST, SIP1, SLUG and ZEB1 were analysed in tumour cells, stomal and endothelial cell nuclei, as well as in cytoplasm of PSCC samples in an effort to evaluate the association of their expressions with clinicopathological variables and patient prognosis.

Tumor with positive epithelial nucleal SIP1 immustaining were more advanced and had more lymph node metastases. The expression of SIP1 was also linked to poorer disease-specific five-year survival and was an independent prognostic factor in multivariate analysis together with tumour size and general patient status.