Affiliations: [a] Oral Medicine, Oral Surgery and Implantology Unit, Faculty of Medicine and Odontology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Foundation of Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela, Santiago de Compostela, Spain | [b] Department of Pathology, Clinical University Hospital, Santiago de Compostela, Spain | [c] Department of Pathology and Forensic Sciences, University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain | [d] Instituto de Investigación Sanitaria de Santiago, Santiago de Compostela, Spain | [e] Department of Odontostomatology, Medicine and Health Sciences (School of Dentistry), University of Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
Correspondence:
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Corresponding author: Alejandro I. Lorenzo-Pouso, Foundation of Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela, %****␣cbm-27-cbm190776_temp.tex␣Line␣25␣**** Oral Medicine, Oral Surgery and Implantology Unit – Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Santiago de Compostela, Rúa Entreríos S/N, Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, 15782, Spain. Tel.: +34 636 676 784; E-mail: alexlopo@hotmail.com.
Abstract: BACKGROUND: Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) represents 95% of all cancers of the head and neck region. The five-year survival rate of OSCC patients is about 60% and has not gone throw significant improvements despite recent advances in molecular biology, or the identification of key pathways in its pathophysiology such as cell cycle. OBJECTIVE: 1) to analyse the inmunoexpression of cell cycle checkpoints (CPs) in an OSCC institutional cohort and to relate it to clinicopathological features and survival, and 2) to study CPs-related genes in the OSCC subset of the TCGA database. METHODS: Immunohistochemistry (IHC) for p16INK4a, p21CIP1, cyclin D1 and p27KIP1 protein expression was quantified by tissue microarray analysis in 68 samples from OSCC patients. In order to analyse its correlation with genetic information, a cohort belonging to The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) database was analysed. RESULTS: Of 68 patients, 34 (50%) developed recurrence, and 36 (52.09%) died as a result of disease progression (mean survival 34.09 months). IHC staining for nuclear cyclin D1 was associated with worse staging and tobacco use. p16INK4a, p21CIP1, cyclin D1, and p27KIP1 expression was unrelated to overall survival. No statistically significant correlation linked the CPs-related genes mutations to OSCC overall survival in the TCGA database. CONCLUSIONS: CPs variations at a phenotype and genotype level seem not to affect significantly clinicopathological features and survival in the studied OSCC cohorts.
