2012 年 10 巻 4 号 p. 406-413
Oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) represents more than 90% of all head and neck cancers. However, combinations of more aggressive treatments have not been able to substantially improve its 5-year survival rate. After surgery, patients tend to develop local recurrence, despite the resection margins being histologically tumor free, indicating that the histopathologically tumor-free margin includes some histologically undetectable changes, and such changes may be revealed by immunohistochemistry (IHC). Various genomic, proteomic and metabolomic approaches are now being evaluated in the prediction of tumor recurrence in OSCC. The main aim of this review article is to provide a summary of markers revealed by IHC that may be able to predict the risk of tumor recurrence in surgical margins. Further investigation of these newly identified genes and proteins in the middle and long term may contribute a definitive method for predicting tumor recurrence. Thus, it may be possible to increase the post-operative disease-free survival of OSCC patients.
