Metabolomics as a frontier in oral squamous cell carcinoma diagnosis: Understanding metabolic alterations and clinical implications

Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is a common oral cavity cancer with a high death rate, owing to late detection and limitations in existing diagnostic techniques. Despite advancements in physical examination, imaging, and histopathological techniques, early detection of OSCC remains challenging due to the asymptomatic nature of early lesions and the invasive nature of traditional biopsies. Metabolomics presents a promising frontier in disease diagnosis by analyzing the dynamic and diverse metabolome of the human body. It offers insights into metabolic alterations associated with OSCC and provides potential biomarkers for early detection, prognosis, and monitoring of treatment efficacy. This review summarizes the current state of metabolomics research in OSCC, highlighting significant metabolic changes observed in tumorigenesis, such as altered glucose and amino acid metabolism, and lipid dysregulation. Specifically, this review highlights key metabolic alterations in OSCC, including glycolysis-related metabolites such as lactate and glucose transporters (GLUT1, GLUT3), amino acid metabolism components like glutamine and asparagine, and lipid metabolism markers such as Fatty Acid Synthase (FASN) and cholesterol derivatives. All these metabolites can serve as potential prognostic markers for OSCC. The review concludes with recommendations for future research, including standardizing sample collection methods, focusing on specific metabolites for OSCC, and developing affordable, sensitive diagnostic tools.