Use of Rt-PCR in detecting disseminated cancer cells after incisional biopsy among oral squamous cell carcinoma patients.

PURPOSE: Tumour metastasis is the most clinically significant and enigmatic aspect of tumour behavior and is an unequivocal hallmark of malignancy. Until recent years little has been known about the transportation phase of vascular dissemination during biopsy, because of the technical difficulties in demonstrating circulating cancer cells. AIMS: This study examined whether cancer cell dissemination results from incisional biopsy in the peripheral blood by using Cytokeratin 19(CK-19) as the marker for Reverse Transcriptase-Polymerase Chain Reaction (RT-PCR). In-house recipes without utilizing kits were employed to extract genomic and total RNA to make the procedure user friendly. MATERIALS AND METHODS: The study population consisted of n=10 patients who were clinically diagnosed for oral squamous cell carcinoma and who had not undergone any previous biopsies. 5 patients who were to undergo incisional biopsies for benign conditions served as controls. 5 ml of blood aspirates were collected before and within 15 minutes after incisional biopsy. CK-19 gene and a positive control gene beta actin were isolated to confirm the primers. Using the total RNA, RT-PCR was performed for beta actin and Ck 19 gene expression. RESULTS: Rt-PCR did show any expression for the CK-19 gene. CONCLUSION: In conclusion there was no evidence of dissemination of cancer cells in our study and the patients are on a regular follow up for the past one and half years. But larger sample size should be examined to make the procedure a diagnostic tool for cancer metastasis.