Chromosome instability in tumor resection margins of primary OSCC is a predictor of local recurrence.

BACKGROUND: The local recurrence rate in oral squamous cell cancer (OSCC) hardly decreases. This is partly due to the presence of (pre)malignant cells in the remaining tissue after resection, that may lead to the development of a new tumor in time. Detection of histologically (pre)malignant cells in the tumor resection margins should predict these patients at risk for recurrence, however this appears to be difficult in routine practice. Purpose of this study was to apply easy-to-use molecular tests for more accurate detection of (pre)malignant cells in histopathologically tumor-free margins, to improve diagnosis of patients at risk. METHODS: 42 patients with firstly diagnosed, radically resected primary OSCC with histopathologically confirmed tumor-free resection margins (treated between 1994 and 2003) were included. Inclusion criteria comprised of follow-up ⩾5years, and radical surgery without postoperative treatment. Formalin-fixed paraffine-embedded tissue sections of 42 tumors, 290 resection margins, and 11 recurrences were subjected to fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) to examine chromosome 1 and 7 copy number variations (CNV), and to p53 immunohistochemistry (IHC). RESULTS: 11 out of the 42 patients developed a local recurrence within 5years. FISH analysis showed that nine of eleven recurrences exhibited CI in at least one of the resection margins (p=0.008). P53 overexpression and routine histopathologic classification were not correlated with recurrent disease. The presence of CI in the resection margins revealed a significantly worse progression-free survival (log-rank p=0.012). CONCLUSIONS: CI in the resection margins of OSCC can reliably identify patients at risk for developing a local recurrence.

Modified UroVysion scoring criteria increase the urothelial carcinoma detection rate in cases of equivocal urinary cytology.

AIMS: UroVysion(®) is a four-target fluorescence in situ hybridization technique for the detection of urothelial carcinoma (UC) in urinary cytology. The aim of this retrospective study was to investigate the UC detection rate of a modified UroVysion test in patients with equivocal urinary cytology. The modification comprised the addition of a cytological prescreening technique and different evaluation criteria. METHODS AND RESULTS: Thin-layer slides were prepared from the residual urine samples of 82 patients with equivocal urinary cytology, prestained and prescreened to confirm the presence of atypical urothelial cells. The same slides were used for the UroVysion test, and scored according to different evaluation criteria. The results were compared with the outcomes of cystoscopic and histological findings. UroVysion detected 68% of the UCs when the manufacturer's evaluation criteria were applied. In cases of altered evaluation criteria, the sensitivity increased to 81% when at least one copy number change of a probe target was considered to be a positive test result. The specificity only decreased from 84% to 82%. CONCLUSIONS: Our data suggest that the sensitivity of the UroVysion test can be increased by the addition of a cytological pre-screening technique prior to the UroVysion test and a modification of the UroVysion evaluation criteria.