Prognostic significance of p53 and FHIT in advanced oropharyngeal carcinoma☆
Section snippets
Clinical data
Between 1983 to 1994, a retrospective clinical review of 40 patients who underwent first-time treatment for advanced oropharyngeal carcinoma was performed. Three patients were eliminated from the study because of insufficient tumor sample for p53 and FHIT immunohistochemical analysis. One more patient was eliminated from the FHIT group because of insufficient tumor sample. Two patients did not have sufficient follow-up data. One additional patient was eliminated from the final analysis because
Clinical data
Thirty-four patients were analyzed in this study. Seven of the patients were women, and 27 were men. The patient’s age at the time of diagnosis ranged from 37 to 77 years, with a mean age of 56 years. All 34 patients were smokers and also had a history of frequent ethanol consumption. The range of follow-up for patients was 2 to 161 months with primary endpoints of overall and disease-free survival. All patients had a minimum follow-up of 2 years, except for patients who reached clinical
Discussion
The study of molecular markers in malignant tumors enables us to understand the events that are occurring at the subcellular level and their association with oncogenesis. These events may have a correlation with tumor biologic behavior and clinical prognosis. Poor survival is associated with advanced squamous cell carcinoma of the oropharynx despite newer multimodality treatment regimens. Many patients present with bulky, infiltrating tumors with associated metastatic disease. Molecular
Conclusion
In this initial study of patients with advanced carcinoma of the oropharynx, increased expression of p53 predicted a trend toward an improved prognosis. Contrary to previous published studies, patients with no reduction of expression of FHIT had a significantly poorer survival outcome. In the future, prospective clinical trials must be performed before these molecular markers can be used in treatment decisions.
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Cited by (12)
Immunohistochemical FHIT expression still exists in early lesions of basal cell carcinoma
2010, Pathology Research and PracticeCitation Excerpt :Also, a microsatellite locus on FHIT is found to play a role in familial prostate carcinomas [19]. There are many studies which point to relationships between the decrease in FHIT expression and the clinical course and prognosis of different malignancies [12,14,22,23,28]. In addition to these, there are different studies, which give valuable information on FHIT expression in normal tissues [5,27].
Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma Treated With Radiotherapy or Radiochemotherapy: Prognostic Role of TP53 and HPV Status
2009, International Journal of Radiation Oncology Biology PhysicsCitation Excerpt :In the case of SCC, however, some researchers have found that p53 expression is not associated with either a favorable or unfavorable outcome in HNSCC (16), pharyngeal SCC (17), or oral SCC and OPSCC (18–20). Still other authors (21–25) have claimed to have observed a significant correlation between low p53 expression and poor survival in HNSCC, whereas yet others (26, 27) observed a positive correlation in OPSCC patients treated primarily with surgery. Specifically, these investigators found an increased survival in patients with p53 overexpression (27) and a higher risk of recurrence in patients with lower p53 expression.
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Supported by the American Cancer Society, Atlanta, GA (CRTG-99-246-01-CCE).