Research progress of cancer stem cell biomarkers in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

Cancer stem cells （CSCs）, as a few amount of tumors, have infinite replication, self-renewal, differentiation and regeneration of cell subsets with tumorigenicity, have close relationship with tumor occurrence and recurrence, which can be found in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma （HNSCC）. One of the important measures to improve the patient prognosis is monitoring cancer stem cells and timely clinical intervention. Biomarker detection of cancer stem cells is an important method for clinical monitoring of cancer stem cells. This article reviews the biomarkers of CSCs in HNSCC, which is consist of membrane surface markers, non-coding RNAs, target genes and proteins.