Background and Objectives: Prognostic information is essential for the evaluation, judgement of optimal treatment in the patients with head and neck carcinomas. The prognostic significance of DNA flow cytometry has been investigated for many solid tum...
Background and Objectives: Prognostic information is essential for the evaluation, judgement of optimal treatment in the patients with head and neck carcinomas. The prognostic significance of DNA flow cytometry has been investigated for many solid tumors, but few data have been accumulated for laryngeal carcinoma. Flow cytometry can be broadly defined as the objective measurement of specific cellular parameter of a sample in an automated fashion, as the sample moves passing a stationary detector. The p53 is tumor suppressor gene and cyclin D1 is cell cycle regulator essential for G1 phase progression. Most tumors have some DNA content abnormality, termed aneuploidy and normal cell or reference lymphocyte have diploid DNA content. The author evaluated the prognostic significance of p53, cyclin D1, DNA ploidy and S-phase fraction(SPF) in the squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx to determine the relationship with the various clinicopathological parameters.
Materials and Methods: Paraffin embedded tissue specimen from 28 cases of squamous cell carcinoma of larynx were studied by immunohistochemical method using p53 and cyclin D1 antibody and by flow cytometric DNA analysis. The result of analysis were compared with clinicopathological parameter such as primary site, pathologic differentiation, tumor stage, lymph node metastasis and clinical stage.
Result: 1) The positive expression of p53 protein was 50% and cyclin D1 protein was 60.7% in squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx. 2) The positive rates of cyclin D1 protein were not affected by positivity of p53 protein in squamous cell carcinoma of the Larynx. 3) The DNA aneuploidy was found in 5 cases(17.9%) and diploidy in 23 cases(82.1%). 4) Fourteen out of 28 cases had S-phase fraction more than 35.2. 5) Among the multiple factors, only the lymph node metastasis was found to have a statistically significant in aneuploid cases and higher SPF(>35.2). 6) The positive expression of p53 and cyclin D1 protein did not correlate with clinical features, either.
Conclusion: Expression of p53 and cyclin D1 protein may be related with development of squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx, but not correlated with prognostic indicators. The aneuploid and higher SPF relatively well represent the poor clinical course of squamous cell carcinoma of the larynx.