Microsatellite Instability of Head and Neck Cancer and Field Cancerization

改善头颈部恶性肿瘤预后的关键是早期诊断。尚未开发出检测这些癌症的筛查方法。使用聚合酶链反应的分子技术是检测正常细胞中的小群体癌细胞的敏感方法。我们进行了一系列的微卫星分析，以检测23名口腔癌和咽癌患者唾液中的癌细胞。选择八个微卫星标记来测试肿瘤和唾液样本中的微卫星不稳定性（MSI）。在23例肿瘤标本中，5例（22%）存在MSI。MSI与临床病理特征无相关性。5例MSI阳性标本中4例（80%）在唾液中检测到相同的MSI。讨论了分子筛选和分子跟踪的可能性。

A key to improve the prognosis of head and neck cancers is an early diagnosis of the disease. No screening method to detect these cancers has been developed yet. Molecular techniques using polymerase chain reaction are a sensitive method to detect a small population of cancer cells among normal cells. We conducted a series of microsatellite analysis to detect cancer cells in saliva from 23 oral and pharyngeal cancer patients. Eight microsatellite markers were selected to test for microsatellite instability (MSI) in the tumor and saliva samples. Of 23 samples, 5 (22%) had MSI in the tumor samples. No correlation between MSI and clinicopathological feature was identified. In 4 of 5 (80%) MSI positive samples, we detected the identical MSI in saliva. The possibility of the molecular screening and molecular follow-up is discussed.