Rodrigo Juan Pablo, Ferlito Alfio, Suárez Carlos, Shaha Ashok R, Silver Carl E, Devaney Kenneth O, Bradley Patrick J, Bocker Jennifer M, McLaren Kathryn M, Grénman Reidar, Rinaldo Alessandra
Department of Otolaryngology, Hospital Universitario Central de Asturias, Oviedo, Spain.
Head Neck. 2005 Nov;27(11):995-1003. doi: 10.1002/hed.20257.
Initial cancer evaluation includes assessment of histologic appearance, tumor grading, assessment of lymph node status, and presence of metastasis. However, traditional diagnostic methods such as histopathology and radiology are not sensitive enough to detect small numbers of cancer cells and are limited in their ability to predict response to treatment. Recently, there has been considerable progress in molecular diagnostics in these areas. Using molecular-based technologies, it is now possible to detect cancer early in asymptomatic individuals, identify minimal residual disease at histopathologic normal surgical margins, more precisely assess tumor burden in cancer patients, and more accurately assess the prognosis of the patients. Examples of these applications in the evaluation of head and neck cancer are reviewed here. However, despite the great promise of these new molecular approaches for cancer detection, much of the current technology limits their implementation into routine clinical use.
初始癌症评估包括对组织学外观、肿瘤分级、淋巴结状态评估以及转移情况的评估。然而，传统诊断方法如组织病理学和放射学对检测少量癌细胞不够敏感，且在预测治疗反应方面能力有限。近年来，这些领域的分子诊断取得了显著进展。利用基于分子的技术，现在能够在无症状个体中早期检测癌症，在组织病理学正常的手术切缘识别微小残留病灶，更精确地评估癌症患者的肿瘤负荷，并更准确地评估患者的预后。本文回顾了这些应用在头颈部癌评估中的实例。然而，尽管这些新的分子方法在癌症检测方面前景广阔，但目前的许多技术限制了它们在常规临床中的应用。
