Application of cytology and molecular biology in diagnosing premalignant or malignant oral lesions

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

Early detection of a premalignant or cancerous oral lesion promises to improve the survival and the morbidity of patients suffering from these conditions. Cytological study of oral cells is a non-aggressive technique that is well accepted by the patient, and is therefore an attractive option for the early diagnosis of oral cancer, including epithelial atypia and squamous cell carcinoma. However its usage has been limited so far due to poor sensitivity and specificity in diagnosing oral malignancies. Lately it has re-emerged due to improved methods and it's application in oral precancer and cancer as a diagnostic and predictive method as well as for monitoring patients. Newer diagnostic techniques such as "brush biopsy" and molecular studies have been developed. Recent advances in cytological techniques and novel aspects of applications of scraped or exfoliative cytology for detecting these lesions and predicting their progression or recurrence are reviewed here.

Related collections

Most cited references 75

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Genetic progression model for head and neck cancer: implications for field cancerization.

George W. Koch, J Califano, S Piantadosi … (1996)

A genetic progression model of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma has not yet been elucidated, and the genetic basis for "field cancerization" of the aerodigestive tract has also remained obscure. Eighty-seven lesions of the head and neck, including preinvasive lesions and benign lesions associated with carcinogen exposure, were tested using microsatellite analysis for allelic loss at 10 major chromosomal loci which have been defined previously. The spectrum of chromosomal loss progressively increased at each histopathological step from benign hyperplasia to dysplasia to carcinoma in situ to invasive cancer. Adjacent areas of tissue with different histopathological appearance shared common genetic changes, but the more histopathologically advanced areas exhibited additional genetic alterations. Abnormal mucosal cells surrounding preinvasive and microinvasive lesions shared common genetic alterations with those lesions and thus appear to arise from a single progenitor clone. Based on these findings, the local clinical phenomenon of field cancerization seems to involve the expansion and migration of clonally related preneoplastic cells.

0 comments Cited 151 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Promoter hypermethylation patterns of p16, O6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase, and death-associated protein kinase in tumors and saliva of head and neck cancer patients.

W Westra, J Califano, Helen L Wu … (2001)

Aberrant promoter hypermethylation is common in head and neck cancer and may be useful as a marker for cancer cells. We examined whether cells with tumor-specific aberrant DNA-methylation might be found in the saliva of affected patients. We tested 30 patients with primary head and neck tumors using methylation-specific PCR searching for promoter hypermethylation of the tumor suppressor gene p16 (CDKN2A), the DNA repair gene O6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase (MGMT) and the putative metastasis suppressor gene death-associated protein kinase (DAP-K). Aberrant methylation of at least one of these genes was detected in 17 (56%) of 30 head and neck primary tumors; 14 (47%) of 30 at p16, 10 (33%) of 30 at Dap-K and 7 (23%) of 30 at MGMT. In 11 (65%) of 17 methylated primary tumors abnormal methylated DNA was detected in the matched saliva samples. Abnormal promoter methylation in saliva DNA was found in all tumor stages and more frequently in tumors located in the oral cavity. Moreover, none of the saliva from patients with methylation-negative tumors displayed methylation of any marker. Of 30 saliva samples from healthy control subjects (15 smokers and 15 nonsmokers), only one sample from a smoking patient was positive for DNA methylation at two target genes. Detection of aberrant promoter hypermethylation patterns of cancer-related genes in saliva of head and cancer patients is feasible and may be potentially useful for detecting and monitoring disease recurrence. Long-term longitudinal studies are needed to evaluate this approach for early detection of head and neck cancer in at-risk populations.

0 comments Cited 61 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Use of allelic loss to predict malignant risk for low-grade oral epithelial dysplasia.

Jessica Rosin, Nicole Lam, R Priddy … (2000)

One of the best approaches to identifying genetic changes critical to oral cancer progression is to compare progressing and nonprogressing oral premalignant lesions. However, such samples are rare, and they require long-term follow-up. The current study used the large archive network and clinical database in British Columbia to study loss of heterozygosity (LOH) in cases of early oral premalignancies, comparing those with a history of progression to carcinoma in situ or invasive cancer and those without a history of progression (referred to as nonprogressing cases). Each of 116 cases was analyzed for LOH at 19 microsatellite loci on seven chromosome arms (3p, 4q, 8p, 9p, 11q, 13q, and 17p). The progressing and nonprogressing cases showed dramatically different LOH patterns of multiple allelic losses. An essential step for progression seems to involve LOH at 3p and/or 9p because virtually all progressing cases showed such loss. However, LOH at 3p and/or 9p also occurred in nonprogressing cases. Individuals with LOH at 3p and/or 9p but at no other arms exhibit only a slight increase of 3.8-fold in relative risk for developing cancer. In contrast, individuals with additional losses (on 4q, 8p, 11q, or 17p), which appeared uncommon in nonprogressing cases, showed 33-fold increases in relative cancer risk. In conclusion, analysis of LOH at 3p and 9p could serve as an initial screening for cancer risk of early premalignancies. Follow-up investigation for additional losses would be essential for predicting cancer progression.

0 comments Cited 48 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Mol Cancer

Title: Molecular Cancer

Publisher: BioMed Central (London )

ISSN (Electronic): 1476-4598

Publication date Collection: 2006

Publication date (Electronic): 23 March 2006

Volume: 5

Page: 11

Affiliations

[1 ]Associate Professor Department of Pathology, Moti Lal Nehru Medical College, Allahabad, India

[2 ]Postgraduate Student Department of Pathology, Moti Lal Nehru Medical College, Allahabad, India

[3 ]Professor and Head Department of Pathology, Moti Lal Nehru Medical College, Allahabad, India

[4 ]Research Fellow Department of Pathology, Moti Lal Nehru Medical College, Allahabad, India

Article

Publisher ID: 1476-4598-5-11

DOI: 10.1186/1476-4598-5-11

PMC ID: 1448188

PubMed ID: 16556320

SO-VID: 211a722c-efa1-49a7-9b2d-dad984c378be

License:

This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Application of cytology and molecular biology in diagnosing premalignant or malignant oral lesions

Read this article at

Abstract

Related collections

Karger: Oncology

Most cited references 75

Genetic progression model for head and neck cancer: implications for field cancerization.

Promoter hypermethylation patterns of p16, O6-methylguanine-DNA-methyltransferase, and death-associated protein kinase in tumors and saliva of head and neck cancer patients.

Use of allelic loss to predict malignant risk for low-grade oral epithelial dysplasia.

Author and article information

Journal

Affiliations

Article

History

Categories

Comments

Comment on this article

Similar content 111

Cited by 42

Most referenced authors 721