| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,600,000)
Fiscal Year 2000: ¥1,200,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,200,000)
Fiscal Year 1999: ¥1,400,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,400,000)
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| Research Abstract |
Estrogen receptor (ER) and progesterone receptor (PgR) expression in paraffin-embedded tissues from 103 patients with oral squamous cell carcinomas (SCC) was studied immunohistochemically using the anti-ER and anti-PgR antibodies. The 103 patients (60 males and 43 females) were 31-to 89-year-old (median age 62.8) at first diagnosis. Primary sites consisted of the tongue in 34 patients, gingiva in 27 patients, buccal mucosa in 6 patients, floor of mouth in 8 patients, maxillary sinus in 11 patients and palate in 7 patients.
Of 103 tumors, 54 (58.2%) were ER positive. In these specimens, in agreement with the results seen with the breast cancer tissue used as positive control, strongly-stained cells, in which the ER-immunoreactivity was located in the cell nucleus, were detected. Accordingly, the cases were classed as ER-positive or ER-negative by scoring them on the basis of the visually estimated percentage of tumor cells showing positive nuclear staining, followed by an evaluation usin
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g a 10% cut-off level. In seventeen tumors approximately 10-50% of tumor cells expressed and in thirty-seven tumors over 50% of tumor cells were positive. There were 42 tumors with no nuclear staining and 7 tumors in which a few (<10%) tumor cells were stained. Of 54 ER-positive oral SCCs, only 10 (9.7%) were positive for nuclear PgR : one expressed PgR in more than 75% of tumor cell nuclei, the other in 10-50% of tumor cell nuclei. Histologically, PgR-positive tumors consisted of 9 well-differentiated carcinomas and 1 moderately differentiated type of oral SCC.ER immunoreactivity correlated with the presence of ERmRNA in tumor tissue analyzed using the reverse transcription polymerase chan reaction.
These results suggest that a mechanism similar to the ovarian steroid-mediated induction and proliferation of the breast cancer also operates in oral SCC, speculating the possible clinical use of endocrine therapy for the management of this type of tumor. It is very important to determine whether differences in prognosis exist between patients with ER-positive and ER-negative tumors. Less
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