ABSTRACT
Objective To investigate the clinical significance of peripheral blood Th17 cells and their cytokines in the patients with tongue squamous cell carcinoma.Methods Sixty-six cases of tongue squamous cell carcinoma in our hospital from January 2013 to January 2016 served as the research subjects and contemporaneous 42 volunteers undergoing healthy physical examination were selected as the control group.Peripheral blood was collected in all subjects.The proportion of peripheral blood Th17 cells was detected by flow cytometry.The IL-17,TGF-β and IL-6 cytokine levels were detected by ELISA.Results The proportion of peripheral blood Th17 cells,IL-17,TGF-β and IL-6 in the observation group and the control group were (1.46±0.41)% vs.(0.31±0.12)%,(123.36±21.20)pg/mL vs.(20.76±8.95)pg/mL,(215.80±21.52)pg/mL vs.(26.90±10.41)pg/mL,(17.32±8.02)pg/mL vs.(5.85±1.49)pg/mL respectively,the differences were statistically significant(P<0.05).The proportion of peripheral blood Th17 cells,IL-17,TGF-β and IL-6 levels were increased with the increase of tongue squamous cell carcinoma clinical stage (P<0.01).The TGF-β level was positively correlated with the IL-17 level (r=0.626,P=0.021),the IL-6 level was positively correlated with the proportion of Th17 cells and IL-17 (r=0.626,0.597,P=0.021,0.034).Conclusion The increase of Th17 cells and IL-17 expression plays an important role in the development and progression of tongue squamous cell carcinoma,Th17 cells and IL-17 cytokine can become the important target spots of anti-tumor therapy.