The Biological Role of SCC Antigen in Head and Neck Cancer

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Serine proteases have important roles in tumor invasion and metastasis and their inhibitors, serine protease inhibitors (serpins) are attractive targets for therapeutic strategies. On chromosome 18q21,there is a cluster of serpins ; maspin, headpin, and SCCA1. Others and we have reported that the expression of these serpins are down-regulated in HNSCC cells as compared to normal squamous epithelial cells. We have hypothesized that expression of SCCA1 is biologically disadvantageous to HNSCC cells. The in vitro and in vivo invasion of established HNSCC cell lines stably transfected with a mammalian expression vector with SCCA1 cDNA was significantly inhibited compared to the vector control. SCCA1 may function to inhibit the invasive potential of HNSCC.We also reported that Serum SCC antigen level has a correlation with disease status of sinonasal inverted papilloma(IP) and has a potential to serve as a useful tool for monitoring the course of disease. SCC antigen is a reliable tumor marker in the management ofsinonasal IPs.