suitable technique may be used to determine the identity and abundance such as but not limited to commercially available mirna kits such as mirvana bioarray ambion fifteen differentially expressed mirnas were identified in squamous cell lung cancer cells which had significantly altered expression relative to a wild type sample these sequences are shown in table 1 in one embodiment of the invention a sample is analyzed to determine the abundance of a specified mirna sequence from table 1 the sample may be a tissue sample such as a sample obtained during a surgical procedure alternatively the sample may be obtained non invasively from for example a blood sample or from a similar source the abundance of a specified mirna in the sample is determined and a regulation change is observed relative to an average sample since mirnas are known to persist outside of the cell free mirnas can provide a screening method for squamous cell lung cancer such screening can be performed using non invasive sampling techniques such as a simple blood test in this fashion patients in a high risk group could be routinely tested to help identify the early development of cancer in another embodiment mirna abundances are observed to distinguish squamous cell lung cancer from adenocarcinoma by observing regulatory changes in mirna expression such a distinction can be made even when tissue morphology is unclear additional mirna sequences have been discovered that permit one to predict the prognosis of lung squamous cell carcinoma twenty mirna sequences were so identified as being tightly associated with squamous cell lung carcinoma prognosis clinical samples were collected between october 1991 and july 2002 the medical history of each of the patents was also.