Molecular Mechanisms of OSCC Tumor Invasion

OBJECTIVES:

• To test preliminary data from node-positive oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) signatures for their ability to predict lymph-positive primaries using a cohort of OSCC tumors.
• To perform lymph node prediction using sentinel lymph node-biopsied primaries.
• To validate the preliminary data node-positive OSCC signature and test its ability to predict nodal status.

OUTLINE: Patient tissue samples are screened using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) for human papilloma virus-specific primers. Samples are analyzed to identify a nodal-metastasis signature for oral squamous cell carcinoma. Samples also undergo microarray analysis to quantify expression levels for targeted genes. Initial data analysis is performed using Affymetrix® Microarray Suite 5.0 to quantify expression levels for targeted genes.