Malignancy prediction among tissues from Oral SCC patients including neck invasions: a 1 H HRMAS NMR based metabolomic study

Introduction Oral cancer is a sixth commonly occurring cancer globally. The use of tobacco and alcohol consumption are being considered as the major risk factors for oral cancer. The metabolic profiling of tissue specimens for developing carcinogenic perturbations will allow better prognosis. Objectives To profile and generate precise 1 H HRMAS NMR spectral and quantitative statistical models of oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) in tissue specimens including tumor, bed, margin and facial muscles. To apply the model in blinded prediction of malignancy among oral and neck tissues in an unknown set of patients suffering from OSCC along with neck invasion. Methods Statistical models of 1 H HRMAS NMR spectral data on 180 tissues comprising tumor, margin and bed from 43 OSCC patients were performed. The combined metabolites, lipids spectral intensity and concentration-based malignancy prediction models were proposed. Further, 64 tissue specimens from twelve patients, including neck invasions, were tested for malignancy in a blinded manner. Results Forty-eight metabolites including lipids have been quantified in tumor and adjacent tissues. All metabolites other than lipids were found to be upregulated in malignant tissues except for ambiguous glucose. All of three prediction models have successfully identified malignancy status among blinded set of 64 tissues from 12 OSCC patients with an accuracy of above 90%. Conclusion The efficiency of the models in malignancy prediction based on tumor induced metabolic perturbations supported by histopathological validation may revolutionize the OSCC assessment. Further, the results may enable machine learning to trace tumor induced altered metabolic pathways for better pattern recognition. Thus, it complements the newly developed REIMS-MS iKnife real time precession during surgery.