High expression of stathmin 1 is a strong prognostic marker in oral squamous cell carcinoma patients treated by docetaxel-containing regimens.

Stathmin 1 is an oncoprotein that regulates cell cycle by modulating microtubule dynamics and can cause uncontrolled cell proliferation in mutated state. The present study examined stathmin 1 expression in 49 patients with oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) treated with docetaxel (Doc)-containing regimens by immunohistochemical staining. Moreover, we investigated the relationship between stathmin 1 expression and clinicopathological features, as well as the prognosis of above patients. Stathmin 1 could be detected in the cytoplasm of tumor cells in OSCC tissues though its expression level was variable. There was no correlation between stathmin 1 expression and patient gender, or age in OSCC. However, stathmin 1 expression of tumor cell was significantly correlated with T classification (P = 0.0017), N classification (P = 0.0171), stage (P < 0.0001), therapeutic efficacy (P < 0.0001), and patient outcome (P = 0.0387). In addition, high expression of stathmin 1 in tumor cells was associated with shorter overall survival (OS, P = 0.0017). Multivariate analysis also revealed that high expression of stathmin 1 was a predictor of reduced survival (P = 0.0241). These findings suggest that patients with OSCC tumors showing high expression of stathmin 1 might have poor therapeutic effects and worse clinical outcomes in OSCC treated with Doc-containing regimen.