Rizzo Maria Ida, Ralli Massimo, Nicolazzo Chiara, Gradilone Angela, Carletti Raffaella, Di Gioia Cira, De Vincentiis Marco, Greco Antonio
Department of Surgical Science, Sapienza University of Rome, Rome 00186, Italy.
Craniofacial Center, Plastic and Maxillofacial Surgery Unit, Bambino Gesù Children Hospital, Rome 00165, Italy.
Oncol Lett. 2020 Jun;19(6):4183-4188. doi: 10.3892/ol.2020.11528. Epub 2020 Apr 10.
The presence of circulating tumor cells (CTCs) in the blood of patients with metastatic breast, colorectal and prostate cancer have been widely investigated; however, few studies have examined CTCs in patients with laryngeal cancer. The present pilot study aimed to detect pre- and postoperative CTCs in the blood of patients with laryngeal cancer and evaluate the association with prognosis. Eight patients with laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma (LSCC) at stage III were included in the present study and underwent total or subtotal laryngectomy and radical bilateral neck lymph node dissection. Blood samples were collected from all patients before and after surgery at different time-points. The following processing steps were followed; preoperative blood sampling, surgery, postoperative blood sampling at 3, 6 and 12 month follow-ups, and prognostic association analysis. CTCs were retained on ScreenCell filters for cytological characterization. The presence of CTCs was associated with a less favorable prognosis, whereas a decrease of CTCs in the postoperative sampling was observed in patients who exhibited an improved therapeutic response. The results of the present pilot study revealed a possible association between the presence of CTCs and a less favorable prognosis in patients with LSCC; therefore, these preliminary findings may encourage further research into the incorporation of a liquid biopsy in the management of LSCC, as this may help identify patients with occult metastatic disease earlier and in a non-invasive manner. In addition, this approach may represent novel independent prognostic factor for use in the clinical evaluation of patients with LSCC.
转移性乳腺癌、结直肠癌和前列腺癌患者血液中循环肿瘤细胞（CTC）的存在已得到广泛研究；然而，很少有研究检测喉癌患者的CTC。本初步研究旨在检测喉癌患者术前和术后血液中的CTC，并评估其与预后的关系。本研究纳入了8例III期喉鳞状细胞癌（LSCC）患者，他们均接受了全喉或次全喉切除术及双侧根治性颈淋巴结清扫术。在手术前后的不同时间点采集所有患者的血样。遵循以下处理步骤：术前采血、手术、术后3个月、6个月和12个月随访时采血以及预后关联分析。将CTC保留在ScreenCell滤器上进行细胞学特征分析。CTC的存在与预后较差相关，而在治疗反应改善的患者中，术后采样时CTC数量减少。本初步研究结果显示，LSCC患者中CTC的存在与预后较差可能存在关联；因此，这些初步发现可能会促使进一步研究将液体活检纳入LSCC的管理中，因为这可能有助于更早且以非侵入性方式识别隐匿性转移疾病患者。此外，这种方法可能代表一种用于LSCC患者临床评估的新型独立预后因素。
