Immunohistochemical evaluation of D2-40, Galectin-3, Maspin and MCM7 expression in palate squamous cell carcinomas.

Squamous cell carcinoma (SCC) is the most frequent cancer in oral cavity and its prognosis has exhibited little improvement in the last decades. Although much less common palate SCCs manifests a higher local aggression invading very quickly the adjacent muscles and jawbones, thus being able frequently to lead to dysfunctions in chewing, swallowing, and speech. To elucidate what underlies such local aggression, we investigated the immunohistochemical expression in palate SCCs of Podoplanin (D2-40), Galectin-3 (Gal-3), mammary serine protease inhibitor (Maspin) and minichromosome maintenance complex component 7 (MCM7), markers that are known to be involved in tumor invasiveness. We found a progressive increase in reactivity for D2-40 and MCM7 from the normal epithelium toward dysplastic epithelium and respectively to SCC, which suggests the intervention of these markers in the early stages of squamous cell carcinogenesis in the palate. The highest D2-40, Gal-3 and MCM7 reactivity was observed in basaloid and in poorly differentiated (G3) palate SCCs, while for Maspin the well-differentiated (G1) palate SCCs were the most reactive. The first three markers mentioned above were most intensely expressed at the invasion front, while the Maspin reactivity was low or absent at this level. Statistically, we found significant stratification on localization, grading, muscle invasion, and survival for all investigated markers, but with very high direct correlations between D2-40, Gal-3, and MCM7 immunoreactive score (IRS) values, while between the Maspin and each of the previous markers there were very high inverse correlations. Overall, all these investigate markers proved to be responsible for the local invasiveness and regional lymph node metastasis, thus allowing a prognostic and therapeutic stratification of patients with palate SCCs.

Analysis of the distribution and expression of some tumor invasiveness markers in palate squamous cell carcinomas.

Oral cancer remains an important global health issue and despite recent diagnostic and therapeutic advances, it continues to have an unfavorable prognostic and decreased survival. Although palatal tumors represent one of the rarest locations of oral squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs), they are among the most aggressive local tumors, leaving behind important morpho-functional disabilities. In order to explain such local aggressiveness, the present study aims to investigate the immunohistochemical expression in palate SCCs of some markers known to be involved in the process of tumor invasiveness, such as Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome like (WASL), Claudin-1 (CLDN1), Integrin beta-6 (ITGB6) and c-Mesenchymal to epithelial transition protein (c-Met). We have found here a higher tumor WASL and CLDN1 reactivity in well-differentiated (G1) palate SCCs, and regardless the histological type, degree of differentiation or tumor topography, an overexpression at the invasion front, and in those palate' SCC cases with muscular invasiveness and with lymph node (LN) dissemination. ITGB6 and c-Met had a higher reactivity in moderately differentiated (G2) palate SCCs, especially at the periphery of tumor proliferations, at the invasion front and in those high invasive cases and as well as in those that associated LN dissemination. All four investigated markers were also positive at the level of LN metastatic proliferations. None of the markers could statistically stratify on age group and pain, and on bone and perineural invasion while all of them statistically stratified on survival and grading. We concluded that these markers have a prognostic role allowing the identification of those cases with an unfavorable clinical evolution and decreased survival.

Palate Squamous Cell Carcinomas:A Ten-Year Single Institute Experience.

The literature date estimated that about 5% of all oral cavity cancers are hard palate cancers while soft palate cancers account for about 5-12% of oropharyngeal cancers. Although rare, usually these tumors had a more aggressively behavior than other oral cancer sites. That is why our study aimed to investigate comparatively the epidemiological, clinical and histopathological peculiarities of the two palatal sites of oral squamous cell carcinomas. We conducted a retrospective study limited to a period of 10 years in a single medical institution to investigate the morphoclinical profile of such tumors. We found that patients with hard palate SCCs had an average age slightly larger compared to those who developed soft palate tumors. Also, those with hard palate tumors are mostly diagnosed in less advanced stages compared to those at the level of the soft palate, and implicitly the former had a longer survival time. Histopathologically the most encountered hard palate SCC were the conventional well-differentiated tumor, and from the peculiar SCC variant the papillary and verrucous forms while for the soft palate SCC prevailed the moderate and poor differentiated conventional SCC and from the peculiar SCC variant the basaloid and acantholytic forms. In conclusion hard palate tumors differ in many aspects from those of the soft palate, and thus specification of the origin tumor site become important for the assessment of prognosis, treatment and survival outcome of such patients.