Original ContributionsPrognostic significance of cyclooxygenase-2 pathway and angiogenesis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma*
Section snippets
Patients and methods
We studied 52 consecutive patients affected by HNSCC who underwent surgical treatment of the primary tumor and of the neck at the Department of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery, University of Florence, from April 1995 through April 1998. There were 41 men (78.8%) and 11 women (21.2%) with a mean age of 62.3 years (range, 50 to 74 years). Twenty-two patients suffered from laryngeal, 18 from oral cavity, and 12 from oropharyngeal SCC. Tumors were graded as well differentiated, moderately
COX-2 expression and PgE2 production in head and neck cancer
Overall, 37 of 52 (71.1%) squamous cell carcinomas studied showed cytoplasmic immunoreactivity for COX-2 in neoplastic cells (Fig 1).Twenty (54.1%) of these showed a moderate or diffuse immunostaining. COX-2 immunoreactivity was significantly higher in tumors with histologically confirmed cervical lymph node metastasis than in with tumors without neck involvement (Table 1; P = 0.0001).Moreover,
Discussion
In this study we confirm in a larger series of patients our previous results on frequent COX-2 overexpression in HNSCC when compared with adjacent normal tissue, which is accompanied by an increase in PgE2 production, particularly at the tumor edge.26 The levels of COX-2 expression detected in this study are comparable to those of colon cancer30 and of adenocarcinoma of the lung.8 In addition, the high rate of COX-2 expression in HNSCC is in agreement with the results of Chan et al.9 on HNSCCs,
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The role of regional anesthesia in the propagation of cancer: A comprehensive review
2019, Best Practice and Research: Clinical AnaesthesiologyCitation Excerpt :In the past few years general anesthesia has demonstrated efficacy in reducing ear, nose, and throat cancer recurrence through its ability to inhibit prostaglandins E2 and cyclooxygenase 2 in cancer cells [73]. This is especially important, as prior research has shown that both prostaglandins E2 and cyclooxygenase 2 have been implicated in the development of cervical metastases of squamous cell carcinomas of the head and neck [74,75]. Furthermore, these patients had significantly reduced overall survival rates [75].
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Address correspondence and reprint requests to Alessandro Franchi, MD, Department of Human Pathology and Oncology, University of Florence, V.le Morgagni 85, 50134 Florence, Italy.