Abstract INTRODUCTION: Oral cancer is the most common subset of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC). These tumors often have an aggressive clinical outcome hallmarked by a propensity for local invasion and regional nodal metastasis. The presence of metastatic disease in cervical lymph nodes is an important prognostic factor and it influences in the choice of the therapeutic strategy to be adopted. Thus, the identification of molecular markers able to select patients who are at high risk for lymph node metastasis and/or locoregional recurrence could be of great value. Recent studies have shown that microRNAs can be regulators of the tumor metastasis process by the activation of various signaling pathways involved in this process being useful in diagnosis, determination of disease prognosis and prediction of therapeutic response. PURPOSE: to identify microRNAs expressed in OSCC associated with the presence of lymph node metastasis. METHODS: Tumor samples were obtained from patients diagnosed with OSCC at the Head and Neck Surgery Department, Cancer Hospital of Barretos. For microRNA microarrays experiments, total RNA from 32 tumor samples (12 without lymph node metastasis and 12 with metastasis) was extracted labelled and hybridizated Analysis of microarray data was performed using GeneSpring GX 12.0 and R program. RESULTS: This analysis allowed the identification of six microRNAs differentially expressed in the comparison between metastatic and non-metastatic OCCS cases. These microRNAs will be validate and selected by qRT-PCR in an independent cohort of OSCC patients and correlate the molecular data with the clinical features of the patients. Financial Support: FAPESP Note: This abstract was not presented at the meeting. Citation Format: Fernando Tadeu Zamunér, Danielle Calheiros Campelo Maia, André Lopes Carvalho, André Luiz Vettore. Identification of markers for the presence of lymph nodes metastasis in patients with oral squamous cell carcinomas. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 105th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2014 Apr 5-9; San Diego, CA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2014;74(19 Suppl):Abstract nr 1495. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2014-1495