Association of 8p23 deletions with poor survival in head and neck cancer

OBJECTIVE: Allelic loss at 8p23 occurs frequently in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. The objective of this study was to determine the prognostic importance of 8p23 loss. STUDY DESIGN AND SETTINGS: We tested 51 primary tumors and 19 lymph node metastases for loss of heterozygosity with 7 microsatellite polymorphisms at 8p23 and correlated the results with disease-free interval and disease-specific survival. RESULTS: The Kaplan-Meier analysis demonstrated statistically significant association of 8p23 allelic loss with both shorter disease-free interval and disease-specific survival. For the pN stage, the log-rank test indicated significance in correlation with the disease-free interval, whereas the pT stage showed a significant correlation with disease-specific survival. Multivariate analysis identified loss of heterozygosity at 8p23 as independent prognostic marker for disease-free interval, CONCLUSION: Our data suggest that 8p23 allelic loss is associated with poor prognosis in head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and could be useful refining diagnosis of these tumors.