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Expression of the CXCL12/CXCR4 chemokine axis predicts regional control in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma

  • Head and Neck
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Abstract

Expression of the CXCL12/CXCR4 chemokine axis has been related with the appearance of metastatic recurrence survival, including regional and distant recurrence, in patients with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC). RT-PCR was used to determine mRNA expression levels of CXCL12 and CXCR4 in biopsy tumor samples in 111 patients with HNSCC. Five-year regional recurrence-free survival for patients with low CXCR4 expression (n = 39, 31.5 %) was 97.4 %, for patients with high CXCR4/high CXCL12 expression (n = 22, 19.8 %) it was 94.7 %, and for patients with high CXCR4/low CXCL12 expression (n = 50, 45.0 %) it was 63.3 %. We found significant differences in the regional recurrence-free survival according to CXCR4/CXCL12 expression values (P = 0.001). HNSCC patients with high CXCR4 and low CXCL12 expression values had a significantly higher risk of regional recurrence and could benefit from a more intense treatment of lymph node areas in the neck.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Sonia Alcolea and Montserrat Gómez for their excellent technical support.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Otorhinolaryngology Department, Hospital de la Santa Creu i Sant Pau, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, c/Mas Casanovas 90, 08041, Barcelona, Spain

    Xavier León, Jacinto García, Joan Lop, Anna Sumarroca & Miquel Quer

  2. Centro de Investigación Biomédica en Red de Bioingeniería, Biomateriales y Nanomedicina (CIBER-BBN), Madrid, Spain

    Xavier León

  3. Otorhinolaryngology Department, Hospital de L’Esperit Sant, Santa Coloma de Gramenet, Barcelona, Spain

    Santiago Diez

  4. Laboratory of Angiology, Vascular Biology and Inflammation, Institute of Biomedical Research (IIB Sant Pau), Barcelona, Spain

    Mercedes Camacho

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  1. Xavier León
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  2. Santiago Diez
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  3. Jacinto García
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  4. Joan Lop
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  5. Anna Sumarroca
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Anna Sumarroca.

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Funding

This work was supported by a Grant from the Instituto de Salud Carlos III (FIS PI14/01918). The study was cofunded by Fondo Europeo de Desarrollo Regional (FEDER), A Way to Build Europe.

Conflict of interest

All authors have no conflict of interest regarding this paper.

Ethical approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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León, X., Diez, S., García, J. et al. Expression of the CXCL12/CXCR4 chemokine axis predicts regional control in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 273, 4525–4533 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-016-4144-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00405-016-4144-9

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