These data support the hypothesis that histopathologically benign mucosa of the upper aerodigestive tract may harbor foci of clonal, preneoplastic cells that are genetically related to metastatic HNSCC and that such mucosal sites are the sites of origin of unknown primary HNSCC. Microsatellite analysis may represent a clinically useful tool for determining such sites.
These results confirm a high frequency of chromosome arm 4q loss in primary head and neck squamous cell carcinoma and might demarcate 2 novel putative suppressor loci involved in progression of this carcinoma.
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