Pre-operative radio-chemotherapy enhances apoptotic cell death in oral squamous cell carcinoma

The effect of pre‐operative radio‐chemotherapy (RCT) has been examined in a total of 15 oral squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs), in terms of apoptosis (cell loss) and proliferation. All the patients received pre‐operative radiation at a dosage of 30 or 40 Gy, as well as anticancer agents including taga...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of oral pathology & medicine 1998-09, Vol.27 (8), p.382-387
Main Authors: Doi, Rieko, Makino, Takafumi, Adachi, Hironobu, Ryoke, Kazuo, Ito, Hisao
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The effect of pre‐operative radio‐chemotherapy (RCT) has been examined in a total of 15 oral squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs), in terms of apoptosis (cell loss) and proliferation. All the patients received pre‐operative radiation at a dosage of 30 or 40 Gy, as well as anticancer agents including tagaful (FT), 5‐fluorouracil (5‐FU), bleomycin (BLM) and peplomycin (PEP). Surgical specimens were obtained before and after RCT, and serial sections were prepared for immunohistochemistry for p53 oncoprotein and Ki‐67 antigen, as well as for terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT)‐mediated dUTP‐biotin nick end labeling (TUNEL). TUNEL indices (TI; percentage of TUNEL‐positive cells in the tumor cells) before and after RCT were 1.2±1.1 and 4.7±2.9 in the nine well‐differentiated oral SCCs, and 1.0±0.7 and 3.9±2.1 in the six poorly differentiated SCCs, respectively. Similarly, Ki‐67 indices (KI; percentage of Ki‐67 antigen‐positive cells in tumor cells) before and after RCT were 31.1±14.2 and 15.8±11.1 in the former, and 37.1±7.8 and 8.7±13.4 in the latter, respectively. Thus, pre‐operative RCT enhanced apoptotic cell death and abated proliferative activity significantly (P < 0.05), regardless of histological differentiation. Enhancement of apoptosis was more prominent in the group treated with FT or 5‐FU than with BLM or PEP. Oral SCC with > 20% of nuclear p53‐positive tumor cells was noted in six cases. Enhanced TI and abadement of KI did not differ among the p53‐positive and ‐negative tumors.
ISSN:0904-2512
1600-0714
DOI:10.1111/j.1600-0714.1998.tb01971.x