Publications by authors named "Thijs Wu"

Osteosarcomas are primary tumors of bone that most often develop in adolescents. They are characterized by complex genomic changes including amplifications, deletions, and translocations. The chromosome region 17p11.

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Article Synopsis
  • Loss of heterozygosity (LOH) at specific chromosome arms is linked to oral cancer development and serves as a potential biomarker for monitoring oral precancerous lesions in high-risk patients, including those with Fanconi anemia.
  • A study found LOH in 9.9% of nontransplanted Fanconi anemia patients, while none were detected in lower-risk groups, indicating a significant correlation between LOH and head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC).
  • The LOH assay may need modification for transplanted patients due to interference from donor DNA in oral samples, suggesting further research is needed for effective noninvasive screening in these cases.*
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Patients with advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCCs) are often treated with concomitant chemotherapy and radiotherapy, but only 50% is cured. A possible explanation for treatment failure is therapy resistance of the cancer stem cells (CSCs). The application of compounds specifically targeting these CSCs, in addition to routinely used therapeutics, would likely improve clinical outcome.

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Osteosarcoma is the most common primary malignancy of bone. The tumours are characterized by high genomic instability, including the occurrence of multiple regions of amplifications and deletions. Chromosome region 17p11.

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Fanconi anemia is a recessively inherited disease that is characterized by congenital abnormalities, bone marrow failure, and a predisposition to develop cancer, particularly squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) in the head and neck and anogenital regions. Previous studies of Fanconi anemia SCCs, mainly from US patients, revealed the presence of high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA in 21 (84%) of 25 tumors analyzed. We examined a panel of 21 SCCs mainly from European Fanconi anemia patients (n = 19 FA patients; 16 head and neck squamous cell carcinomas [HNSCCs], 2 esophageal SCCs, and 3 anogenital SCCs) for their clinical and molecular characteristics, including patterns of allelic loss, TP53 mutations, and the presence of HPV DNA by GP5+/6+ polymerase chain reaction.

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