Rodrigues-Junior DM, et al. - Investigators quantified melanoma-antigen recognized by T-cells 1 (MLANA) expression in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) lines using reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction and evaluated plasma levels by ELISA to assess the predictive ability for tumor progression among 48 HNSCC cases. They noticed increased plasma levels of MLANA in those with tumor relapse vs those without. They also found a progression with recurrent disease in nearly three-quarters of those with high plasma MLANA levels. They found independent prognosticators for progression-free survival in multivariate analysis in plasma MLANA levels and tumor resectability.