Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) is one of the leading causes of cancer death -- largely due to the failure of current histological procedures in predicting the recurrence of the disease.
Now new research shows that a four-gene signature may accurately predict which patients are at higher risk of OSCC recurrence (BMC Cancer, October 11, 2011).
A team of researchers from the Ontario Cancer Institute at the University Health Network (UHN) in Toronto collected cancerous and noncancerous oral tissue samples from patients with OSCC from Toronto General Hospital at UHN.
They then used a meta-analysis of five published microarray studies along with their own microarray analysis to reliably identify 138 genes commonly overexpressed in both OSCC and normal margin tissues. Of these genes, a four-gene signature with the highest predictive risk of recurrence was selected. This signature contained cell invasion related genes MMP1, COL4A1, P4HA2, and THBS2.
"Our data suggest that histologically normal surgical resection margins that overexpress MMP1, COL4A1, THBS2, and P4HA2 are indicative of an increased risk of recurrence in OSCC," the researchers noted. "Patients at higher risk of recurrence could potentially benefit from closer disease monitoring and/or adjuvant postoperative radiation treatment, even in the absence of other clinical and histopathological indicators."
The findings could be applied to develop a molecular test, which could be clinically useful to help predict which patients are at a higher risk of local recurrence, the researchers added.
