Case-control study reveals elevated soluble OX40 in recurrent laryngeal cancer, suggesting a role for immune checkpoint dysregulation in tumor progression.
Key Points
To investigate the association of OX40 and OX40L genetic polymorphisms and their circulating soluble protein levels with laryngeal cancer susceptibility and disease recurrence.
Analyzed 80 patients with laryngeal cancer and 111 healthy controls in an exploratory cross-sectional study.
Genotyped OX40 rs17568 and OX40L rs1234313 using PCR-RFLP and quantified serum soluble OX40 (sOX40) and OX40L (sOX40L) levels via ELISA.
Homozygous genotypes (AA and GG) of OX40L rs1234313 were significantly more frequent in laryngeal cancer patients compared to healthy controls (p=0.007), while OX40 rs17568 distributions showed no significant difference.
Serum sOX40 and sOX40L levels did not differ significantly between cancer patients and controls, but circulating sOX40 was significantly higher in patients with disease recurrence versus those without recurrence (p=0.008).