Genetic Events in Head and Neck Squamous Cell Carcinoma Revealed

Extract

Researchers at April’s annual meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research in Washington, DC, announced a complete analysis of the genetic alterations of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). “This is really a parts list for head and neck cancer,” said David Neil Hayes, MD, MPH, an associate professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who sees HNSCC patients at the UNC Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Hayes is senior author of the February PLoS ONE article that highlights some of the findings. “There hasn’t been such a list available until now.”

The study is part of The Cancer Genome Atlas (TCGA) project supported by the National Institutes of Health to catalog genomic changes in cancers with poor prognosis or a major impact on public health. The data are then made publicly available. Thirty cancers have been selected; about one-third are complete, whereas the others are in various stages of sample collection or data analysis (https://tcga-data.nci.nih.gov/tcga/). HNSCC is the sixth-most-common cancer worldwide, with about 600,000 new cases every year, and includes cancer of the nose cavity, sinuses, lips, mouth, salivary glands, throat, and voice box. About half of patients survive 5 years after diagnosis. Radiation, chemotherapy, surgery, and cetuximab (which inhibits epidermal growth factor receptor [EGFR]) are treatments for HNSCC. Major risk factors include smoking, alcohol consumption, and human papillomavirus (HPV) infection.