Molecular Screening of Nasopharyngeal Carcinoma: Detection of LMP-1, LMP-2 Gene Expression in Vietnamese Nasopharyngeal Swab Samples

Objective: This study aimed to characterize the expression of LMP-1, LMP-2 in clinical swab samples in orderto find out the potential molecular based biomarker for NPC diagnosis and screening, which could offer a chance indevelopment of rapid method for NPC diagnosis in Vietnamese population. Materials and Methods: A total of 93nasopharyngeal carcinoma swab samples and 100 healthy nasopharyngeal swab samples were collected to evaluateLMP-1, LMP-2 expression by Real-time reversed PCR. Results: we figured out the significant association betweenthe expression of LMP-1 (counting for 48.39%), LMP-2 (counting for 39.78%) and NPC. No LMP-1 expression wasobserved, and only 1 of 100 specimens was detected with LMP-2 positive in healthy samples. In the combination ofLMP-1 (+) and/or LMP-2 (+), the frequency of positive was 53.76%, greater than each gene expression. Additionally,sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value, negative predictive value of assay were 99.00%, 98.04%, 69.72%,and 77.02%, respectively. Additionally, the LMP-2 expression level was 5.50 times higher in NPC samples thannon-cancerous samples. Conclusion: Our results indicated the molecular invasive method based on the expression ofLMP-1, LMP-2 in swab samples would be a promising supplement in NPC diagnosis, screening in the near future inVietnam.