Head
and neck squamous cell cancers are the sixth most common cancers in the world,
the researchers said in their study, and a significant cause of mortality. In
2008, cancers of the oral cavity and pharynx alone accounted for 35,310 new
cases in the United States and 7,590 deaths. Despite the development of new types of
treatments for head and neck cancer, the mortality rates have not improved much
in the last 20 years.
Drs.
Mark
Leid, Arup
Indra, Gitali
Indra and Joseph Abecassis have invented a method to determine the
expression of the transcriptional regulator CTIP2 in a tissue sample and proven
that this provides an early stage diagnostic tool that may reduce the
mortality rate associated with head and neck squamous cell carcinoma. In addition, this diagnostic marker may
effectively catch cancers that need the most aggressive treatments and which are
most apt to recur. Ongoing research
will indicate if levels of CTIP2 in saliva can be used as a diagnostic tool.
Because
CTIP2 expression may be a regulator of cancer “stem” or “progenitor” cell this
technology may also be used to screen for effective therapeutic compounds to
treat these cancers.
A
digital image is available to illustrate this story. The figure in “A” shows a
very low level of CTIP2 expression in normal human epithelia, while “B” shows a
significant increase in expression in aggressive head and neck cancer.
Patent
status: Patent applications published: 20100015625
-07-69