biomarkers to predict oral squamous cell carcinoma in precancerous ...

Rev Fac Odontol Bauru2002; 10(2):63-7(LOH), which may contain putative tumoursupressor genes in oral, oropharyngeal, and otherhead and neck cancers 25 .Following the pioneer studies by Partridge andcolleagues 14 , deletions in the long arm ofchromosome 3 in oral cancer has now beenhighlighted as a very common event, occurring inapproximately 70% of all SCC 15 . Furthermore, itwas shown that allelic imbalance or LOH in 3p werepresent in dysplastic mucosa but not in normalmucosa and, therefore, an early event in the processof carcinogenesis 5 . In potential malignancies,deletions of 3p were rather frequent, especially whendysplasias recurred, or when SCC developed. 3pdeletions thus might serve as a biomarker to identifylesions that may relapse or even undergo malignantchange 32 . Moreover, it has been demonstrated thatif one introduced an intact human chromosome 3into different tumorigenic cell lines, tumourigenicitywould be suppressed in each cell line, with significantdecrease in in vitro growth rate and morphologicchanges 24 .Loss of loci in chromosome 9p and amplificationof 11q have also been related to SCC of head andneck. However, no reports have been found inpotentially malignant lesions. Both have shownstriking prognostic value for cancer rather thanpredictive of development of cancer.Image-based ploidy analysisVery recently image-based ploidy analysis hasbeen shown highly effective to predict malignanttransformation with high sensitivity and specificityand can be applied routinely to biopsy samples in ahospital setting.Cumulative evidence points to abnormalities inthe number of chromosomes (aneuploidy) as a causerather than a consequence of malignanttransformation 21 . Notwithstading this, consideringthat cancer and genetic instability are almostsynonyms, mutations in genes that control segregationof chromosomes during mitosis and/or centrosomalaberrations are critical to determine malignantchange. As a matter of fact, aberrant chromosomalsegregation occur exclusively in aneuploid tumourcelllines, causing, therefore, aberration of DNAcontent (ploidy) to play an essential role oncarcinogenesis 21, 22 .A Norwegian study has recently revealed whatappears to be the first successful attempt to establisha methodology for prognostication of potentiallymalignant lesions of the oral mucosa. One hundredand fifty patients with an initial diagnosis ofleukoplakia had their lesions analyzed by image-basedploidy and were followed up for 9 years. Out of the27 aneuploid lesions, 21 underwent malignanttransformation. From the 20 tetraploid lesions, 12changed into the malignant phenotype, whilst only 3out of the 103 diploid lesions became malignant 21 .Although DNA ploidy measurements by imagecytometry is a very crude method, with a coefficientof variation of 3-5%, which translates to 1-2chromosomes per nucleus, the long follow-up timepresented in this study supports the notion that DNAcontent is a highly sensitive and a specific markerfor predicting the subsequent occurrence of an oralsquamous cell carcinoma 22 .ACKNOWLEDGEMENTSThe authors are thankfull to Dr. Jonathan Millerfor DNA image (www.jonathanpmiller.com) and Dr.Patrick O. Brown (Howard Hughes MedicalInstitute - Stanford University) for DNA microchipimage. The images are illustrate in the front page ofthis journal.RESUMOInúmeras tentativas têm sido feitas paraestabelecer ou mesmo desenvolver marcadores paradeterminar a susceptibilidade de tecidoshistologicamente normais sofrerem transformaçãomaligna. A literatura é extremamente vasta noassunto, muito embora um marcador definitivo parao carcinoma de boca ainda não tenha sidoestabelecido. Os indicadores atuais podem sersubdivididos em morfológicos (clinico-patológico) emoleculares (serológicos/salivares e genômicos).Dentre eles, destacam-se o p53 tanto no soro comono sítio da lesão, a deleção de porções do gene 3p e,mais recentemente, a análise de ploidia baseada emimagem. Embora todos sejam cientificamenteobjetos de muita pesquisa e resultadosespeculatórios, a ploidia baseada em imagem pareceser o método mais sensível e confiável para prevertransformação maligna em lesões cancerizáveis damucosa bucal.UNITERMOS: Lesões cancerizáveis;Marcadores tumorais; Carcinoma espino-celular;Análise de ploidia por imagem; Câncer, prevenção.65