ABSTRACT
BACKGROUND: Worldwide prevalence of Oropharyngeal Squamous Cell Carcinoma (OPSCC) has increased, affecting mostly young males. OPSCC associated with Human Papillomavirus (HPV) infection exhibits particular characteristics in terms of response to treatment, hence HPV has been proposed as a prognostic factor. The impact of HPV positivity and associated biomarkers on OPSCC in the Mexican population has not been addressed. Therefore, the analysis of OPSCC prognostic markers in the Mexican population is necessary. METHODS: Retrolective study in Mexican OPSCC patients, where HPV prevalence, p16 and EGFR levels were assessed using INNO-LiPA and immunohistochemistry. RESULTS: We found an HPV prevalence of 57.6% in OPSCC cases treated at a reference center in Mexico. HPV and p16 positivity, as well as EGFR, associate with better outcomes in OPSCC patients, and they also promote reduced death risk. Notably, HPV presence and p16 positivity showed a significant association with disease-free survival (DFS), with a HR of 0.15 (p = 0.006) and a HR of 0.17 (p = 0.012), respectively, indicating a possible role as predictive biomarkers in Mexican OPSCC patients. CONCLUSIONS: Our results reflect the clinical utility of p16 analysis to improve overall survival (OS) and to predict recurrence in oropharyngeal cancer. These results position p16 and HPV as predictive biomarkers for OPSCC.
ABSTRACT
Dexamethasone (DEX), a synthetic glucocorticoid widely used in neurological illnesses because of its antiinflammatory properties, has many serious side effects, including severe psychiatric symptoms such as psychoses. The hippocampus is divided in the dorsal hippocampus (DH) and ventral hippocampus (VH) with each region having a subfield of CA1 and CA3 pyramidal layers. Great interest has recently emerged showing that the DH and VH are functionally different. In our work we determined whether, and what, changes occurred, after five days of DEX (0.2mg/kg) treatment, on the dendritic morphology of the CA1 and CA3 pyramidal neurons of the DH and VH of adult Sprague-Dawley rats. The dendritic morphology and characteristics were measured by using the Golgi-Cox procedure followed by a Sholl analysis. DEX decreased the number of dendritic spines of both apical and basolateral dendrites. Interestingly, this decrease was more pronounced in the VH. Only the VH neurons were affected by DEX with a decrease in their total dendritic length (TDL). An interesting point is that the VH neurons are longer that the DH neurons among the groups injected with saline only as the control. The length per branch order was only altered in the apical dendritic tree of the CA1 neurons. These data taken together show that the VH is more susceptible to DEX and its neurons are larger than the DH neurons. These results support previous observations related to differences between the DH and VH and suggest differences in the expression of the glucocorticoid receptors in connectivity and the space to elongate their dendritic arbor.
