Stoll C, Baretton G, Soost F, Terpe H J, Domide P, Löhrs U
Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Humboldt-University of Berlin, Germany.
Oral Oncol. 1999 Sep;35(5):484-9. doi: 10.1016/s1368-8375(99)00021-4.
Considering squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) of the oral cavity and oropharynx the molecular mechanisms underlying the infiltration and destruction of adjacent tissue as well as the metastatic spread are largely unknown. In this context, the detection of defective expression of cellular adhesion molecules in the tumour cells, e.g. CD44, might be important and correlated with prognosis. Paraffin-embedded tumour-tissue from 99 patients with primary oral and oropharyngeal SCC, additionally including corresponding lymph-node metastases in nine cases, was analysed for expression of the CD44 splice variants v4, v5, v6, v7, and v9 by means of immunohistochemistry. A diminution of at least one of the examined CD44 isoforms compared to the normal oral epithelium was observed in 39.4% of the squamous cell carcinomas. No correlations could be found between CD44 expression and pT- or pN-stage. However, decreased expression of v9 was correlated with higher histological grade (p < 0.001). Moreover, reduced CD44 expression was a statistically significant independent predictor for shorter survival time (p = 0.002) as well as shorter recurrence-free interval (p = 0.004) in addition to pT- and pN-stage. The separate analysis showed that particularly the decreased v7 (p = 0.04) and v9 (p < 0.02) expression in the tumour cells was associated negatively with survival.
关于口腔和口咽鳞状细胞癌（SCC），肿瘤细胞浸润和破坏邻近组织以及发生转移扩散的分子机制在很大程度上尚不清楚。在这种情况下，检测肿瘤细胞中细胞粘附分子（如CD44）的表达缺陷可能很重要，并且与预后相关。采用免疫组织化学方法，对99例原发性口腔和口咽SCC患者的石蜡包埋肿瘤组织（其中9例还包括相应的淋巴结转移灶）进行分析，检测CD44剪接变体v4、v5、v6、v7和v9的表达。在39.4%的鳞状细胞癌中，观察到与正常口腔上皮相比，至少一种检测的CD44异构体表达减少。未发现CD44表达与pT或pN分期之间存在相关性。然而，v9表达降低与更高的组织学分级相关（p < 0.001）。此外，除了pT和pN分期外，CD44表达降低是生存时间较短（p = 0.002）以及无复发生存期较短（p = 0.004）的统计学显著独立预测因素。单独分析表明，特别是肿瘤细胞中v7（p = 0.04）和v9（p < 0.02）表达降低与生存呈负相关。
