Objective  Hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma has a high degree of malignancy, and its treatment is challenging. The 5-year overall survival rate for hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma is only 15%-45%, and no significant improvement in this rate has been observed in the past few decades. There is an ongoing search for molecular markers related to the growth, metastasis, and prognosis of hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma to provide a theoretical basis for the development of new anticancer therapies.

  Methods  We analyzed the differences in CDCA3 expression in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and paracancerous tissues using data from the Oncomine database. The relationship between CDCA3 expression levels and the clinicopathological features and prognosis of hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma was analyzed.

  Results  Through analysis of the DNA copy number of the CDCA3 gene using data from the Oncomine database, we found that the DNA copy number of CDCA3 in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma was significantly higher than that in whole blood and normal head and neck tissues in the TCGA data set (P < 0.05). The relative expression level of CDCA3 mRNA in hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma was higher than that in adjacent normal mucosa. The protein expression level of CDCA3 was correlated with clinicopathological features such as tumor size, lymph node metastasis (P < 0.05), and late TNM stage (P < 0.05). Kaplan-Meier survival curve analysis showed that the overall survival time of the CDCA3-positive expression group was significantly shorter than that of the CDCA3-negative expression group.

  Conclusion  The high expression level of CDCA3 in hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma is closely related to the primary tumor size, TNM stage, and cervical lymph node metastasis. It is an independent risk factor that affects the prognosis of hypopharyngeal squamous cell carcinoma.