Oral HPV infection and persistence in patients with head and neck cancer.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the presence and persistence of human papillomavirus (HPV) infection in the oral mucosa of patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), and its correlation with prognosis. STUDY DESIGN: HPV infection was characterized in tumors and pre and posttreatment oral scrapings in 51 patients with HNSCC and matched controls using the SPF10 LiPA Extra assay. p16INK4A immunostain and in situ hybridization for high-risk HPV genotypes recognized transcriptionally active infection in tumor samples. The risk of infection was compared in patients and controls. The association of pretreatment HPV status with recurrence and survival and with posttreatment HPV persistence was assessed. RESULTS: Oral HPV infection risk was significantly higher in patients with HNSCC than in controls (P < .001). Oral HPV infection was associated with infection in the first posttreatment scrapings (P = .015), but did not affect recurrence or prognosis. CONCLUSION: Oral HPV infection is frequent in patients with HNSCC and has no prognostic implications, suggesting that posttreatment polymerase chain reaction monitoring on oral cells is not effective to monitor patient recurrence risk.

Exfoliated cells of the oral mucosa for HPV typing by SPF10 in head and neck cancer.

HPV infection in the superficial cells of the oral mucosa could reflect the presence of HPV in head and neck cancer cells. Due mostly to the use of heterogeneous analytical methods, discordant data exist in the literature regarding the agreement between the presence of HPV in non-neoplastic oral mucosa and in tumour tissue from the same patient. The presence of HPV DNA and viral types were compared in paired cytological and biopsy samples from 56 patients with head and neck neoplastic and preneoplastic lesions using the highly sensitive SPF10 LiPA Extra assay, which has been validated recently for formalin-fixed paraffin-embedded tissue using paired cervical cytology and biopsy samples. Kappa statistics were used to measure the inter-rater agreement. The overall agreement with respect to HPV infection was 96.43% (kappa=0.8367). For 76.79% of subjects (kappa=0.6937), the same number of HPV types was detected in cytological and biopsy specimens. The overall positive typing agreement was 90.90%, comprising 130 out of 143 individual HPV type analyses. The agreement shown was good for HPV 18, 44, 45, 54 and 66 (kappa=0.6585-0. 7321), excellent for HPV 6, 16, 40, and 54 (kappa=0.8108-0.8679), and absolute for HPV 11, 31, 33, 35, 39, 51, 52, 53, 59, 74, and 69-71 (kappa=1.0000). The high sensitivity of the SPF10 LiPA and its excellent performance both for recognising HPV infection and for identifying the viral types present in tumour tissue and in oral exfoliated cells make it a useful method for the assessment of HPV infection in patients with head and neck cancer. The excellent agreement for HPV infection and genotyping in paired samples suggests that oral exfoliated cells can be used for HPV detection in the head and neck region.

Acute respiratory distress in patient with laryngeal schwannoma.

Schwannoma is a neurogenic benign tumour arising from the proliferation of Schwann cells present in the peripheral nerve sheath of myelinated nerves. This proliferation can hypothetically appear in every anatomic region of the human body, but the nerve sheath tumors rarely occur within the larynx. In this paper the authors discuss the case of a 74-year-old female who presented to Emergency Unit (EU) for an important acute respiratory distress. Airway flexible endoscopy revealed a bulky mass of the aryepiglottic fold measuring 3.5 cm in diameter. The patient underwent tracheotomy and a single-step surgical excision treatment of the mass which was recognized as a schwannoma at pathological examination. Tracheotomy was closed 2 weeks postoperatively. After 18 months of followup, the patient is alive and free of disease and her voice had improved markedly.

Fatores prognósticos em pacientes com carcinoma epidermóide de laringe estádio clínico T3 tratados por cirurgia, radioterapia ou associações terapêuticas / Prognostic factors in patients with cT3 laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma treated by surgery, radiation or multimodality treatment

A diminuição da sobrevida registrada para pacientes com câncer de laringe nas últimas décadas pode estar relacionada a mudanças nos padrões de tratamento. Na literatura recente, há uma polëmica sobre o tratamento de tumores laríngeos em estádio clínico T3 devido ao emprego disseminado de estratégias de preservação de orgãos (Hoffman, 2006). Embora os critérios de inclusão para o grupo de preservação de órgãos tendam a selecionar tumores de "baixo volume", a escolha de uma determinada estratégia depende também da formação profissional do médico, da experiência e da infraestrutura do hospital e dos desejos dos pacientes. Essa consideração pressupõe uma distribuição homogênea dos pacientes entre os grupos de tratamento. No entanto, deve-se destacar o papel prognóstico das variáveis relacionadas ao tumor, ao paciente e à opção terapêutica na prática clínica. Objetivo: Avaliar as características clínicas, patológicas e a expressão de biomarcadores ativados pela via do EGFR em uma série de casos em relação à evolução e ao prognóstico. Metodologia: No presente estudo, 145 pacientes consecutivos com diagnóstico de carcinomas avançados de laringe cT3N0-3M0 foram analisados retrospectivamente. Foram incluídos casos de carcinoma epidermoide de supraglote, glote, subglote e transglotte, tratados em uma única instituição por quatro diferentes estratégias de tratamento (cirurgia exclusiva; cirurgia mais terapia adjuvante; radioterapia exclusiva, e radioquimioterapia). Os dados foram obtidos a partir do Registro de Câncer do Hospital A.C. Camargo, São Paulo (1990-2007). Uma série de variáveis clínicas e patológicas foi avaliada pelo métodos de Kaplan-Meier e de regressão de Cox...

The decreased survival recorded for patients with laryngeal cancer in the last decades may be related to changes in patterns of management; in literature a recent debate has been dedicated to the management of clinical stage T3 due to the disseminated use of organ preservation strategies (Hoffman, 2006). Although inclusion criteria for organ preservation group tends to select "low volume" tumors, in clinical practice the choice of a determined strategy depends also to medical and hospital experience and infrastructure and on patients' wishes. This consideration may suppose an homogenous distribution of the patients among the treatment groups, however in clinical practice several clinico-pathological and therapeutic prognostic factors are considered for therapeutic decision. Objectives: Evaluate clinical and pathological characteristics and expression of biomarkers activated by the EGFR cascade in a case series and analise the association with outcomes and prognosis. Materials and method: In the present study 145 consecutive patients with diagnosis of laryngeal advanced carcinomas, cT3N0-3M0, were retrospectively analyzed, including cancer of the supraglottis, glottis, subglottis and trans-glottis, treated in a single institution by four different treatment strategies (exclusive surgery, surgery and adjuvant therapy, radiotherapy alone, and radiochemotherapy). Data was obtained from the Cancer Registry, Hospital AC Camargo, São Paulo (1990-2007). A set of clinical and pathological variables were assessed by Kaplan-Meier and Cox regression methods. Treatment option was also assessed as prognostic factor. Associations between clinical-pathological features of the tumor and survival, disease free-survival and risk of death, were investigated. Results: Three clinical variables, the therapeutic variable and five pathological variables, were statistically significant in estimating cancer specific survival at 5 years (CS-5y)...