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Review
. 2024 Feb 27;16(5):949.
doi: 10.3390/cancers16050949.

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms as Biomarker Predictors of Oral Mucositis Severity in Head and Neck Cancer Patients Submitted to Combined Radiation Therapy and Chemotherapy: A Systematic Review

Ronaldo Cavalieri  1   2 , Harley Francisco de Oliveira  3 , Thais Louvain de Souza  4 , Milton Masahiko Kanashiro  1
Affiliations
Review

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms as Biomarker Predictors of Oral Mucositis Severity in Head and Neck Cancer Patients Submitted to Combined Radiation Therapy and Chemotherapy: A Systematic Review

Ronaldo Cavalieri et al. Cancers (Basel). .

Abstract

Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms (SNPs) are the most common type of genetic variation found in an individual's DNA sequences. SNPs can occur in both coding and non-coding regions of the genome and can affect gene expression, protein function, and disease susceptibility. In this systematic review, we evaluate the potential of SNPs as biomarkers in the assessment of oral mucositis (OM) severity in head and neck cancer (HNC) patients treated with concomitant chemoradiation (CRT). The study selection process involved screening 66 articles from different platforms, and after removing duplicates and excluding articles that did not meet the eligibility criteria, 23 articles were included for full-text evaluation. Among them, genes from several pathways were analyzed. The DNA damage repair pathways had the highest number of genes studied. The most frequently analyzed gene was XRCC1. The proinflammatory cytokine pathways evaluated were TNF, with three articles, and NF-κB, with one article. Most included studies showed a potential association between certain SNPs and high-grade mucositis. We conclude that SNPs can be used as possible biomarkers for the assessment of OM intensity in HNC patients, and further research is needed to explore the potential of SNPs in personalized medicine for HNC treatment.

Keywords: SNPs; chemoradiotherapy; head and neck cancer; mucositis.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Scheme 1
Scheme 1
Flow diagram of the study selection.
Figure 1
Figure 1
Frequency of genes in the included articles separated by colors. Blue: DNA repair genes. Green: Wnt/β-catenin. Brown: cell cycle. Red: inflammatory.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Frequency of different pathways in the included articles.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Number of genes studied in each pathway.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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