The gamma2 chain of laminin-5 as an indicator of increased risk for recurrence in T1 stage tongue cancer.

Background: Treatment of small, localized tongue cancer is an act of balance between sufficiently extensive surgery and/or radiotherapy for safe cure, and minimizing treatment-related morbidity. The biological aggressiveness of these cancers is variable and conventional histopathology does not give sufficient information concerning the risk for local or regional recurrence. Laminin-5 is an extracellular matrix protein noted to have special importance for epithelial cell invasion.

Laminin-5 gamma2 chain expression facilitates detection of invasive squamous cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix.

Because it has been suggested that laminin-5 can be used as a sensitive marker for epithelial cell invasion, specimens from patients with invasive squamous cell carcinoma of the uterine cervix with a previous history of preinvasive lesions were evaluated by a newly developed monoclonal antibody directed against the gamma2 chain of laminin-5. Thirty-two archival paraffin specimens consisting of the matched preinvasive and invasive lesions from 15 women were evaluated to determine whether gamma2 chain laminin-5 staining was present in lesions that progressed to invasive cancer. With the exception of one tumor (a small cell nonkeratinizing squamous carcinoma), all squamous cell carcinomas exhibited positive staining.

Detection of chromosomal aneuploidies and gene copy number changes in fine needle aspirates is a specific, sensitive, and objective genetic test for the diagnosis of breast cancer.

Fine needle aspiration cytology is central to the evaluation of clinically or mammographically detected suspicious lesions of the breast. On the basis of results from studies of >500 breast cancers by comparative genomic hybridization we have developed protocols and designed probe sets that allow one to visualize recurrent chromosomal aneuploidies, amplification of oncogenes, and deletion of tumor suppressor genes directly in cytological preparations using multicolor fluorescence in situ hybridization. The fluorescence in situ hybridization probes are specific for chromosome arm 1q, the c-MYC and HER2 oncogenes, the tumor suppressor gene p53 and, as controls for chromosome ploidy of each cell, the centromeres of chromosomes 8, 10, and 17.