Comparison of cellular radiosensitivity between different localizations of head and neck squamous-cell carcinoma

Abstract

The prognosis of carcinomas arising from various sites in the head and neck varies even when the stage of the disease is taken into consideration, e.g. laryngeal carcinoma has a more favourable prognosis compared to oral-cavity malignancies. The purpose of this study was to evaluate intrinsic cellular radiosensitivity as one possible explanation for the observed differences in the survival rates of different anatomical groups. The radiation survival curves were determined for well characterized cell lines derived from laryngeal carcinoma (n = 14), pharyngeal carcinoma (n = 6), carcinoma of the oral cavity (n = 14) and the skin of the face (n = 3). The intrinsic radiosensitivity was expressed as area under the survival curve (AUC) values, and this cellular parameter was compared with clinical data and survival of the patients. The intrinsic radiosensitivity in the whole group varied between 1.0 Gy and 2.8 Gy with an average of 1.9 Gy. The mean AUC values for the laryngeal cell lines were 2.0 Gy +/- 0.2, for the oral cavity 1.8 +/- 0.3 Gy, for the pharynx 1.8 +/- 0.2 Gy and for cutaneous carcinoma 2.1 +/- 0.1 Gy. There was a slight difference between the groups of glottic and supraglottic cell lines (mean 1.8 +/- 0.2 Gy and 2.1 +/- 0.3 Gy, respectively), which is consistent with the differences in clinical curability of these cancers. Otherwise, the differences in cellular radiosensitivity of the carcinoma groups studied did not reach statistical significance. These results indicate that the intrinsic radiosensitivity of squamous-cell carcinoma (SCC) of the larynx does not significantly differ from that of SCC of other sites of the head and neck. Variations in the intrinsic radiosensitivity do not as such seem to explain the observed differences in radiocurability of SCC variously localized in the head and neck.

The in vitro radiosensitivity of human head and neck cancers

“…stage, nodal status and patient age, and this confirms the findings of others (Brock et al, 1992;Girinsky et al, 1993Girinsky et al, , 1994. This study also confirmed the finding that there are no significant differences in mean radiosensitivity for tumours of different sites within the head and neck region (Girinsky et al, 1993;Pekkola-Heino et al, 1995). The latter observation, however, is in contrast to a report by Brock et al (1992), who found that oral cavity tumours were more radioresistant than carcinomas of the larynx, an observation that is consistent with clinical observations (Corv6 et al, 1994).…”

Proteins and single nucleotide polymorphisms involved in apoptosis, growth control, and DNA repair predict cisplatin sensitivity in head and neck cancer cell lines

“…ICS is reported in terms of the surviving fraction of cells, and varied from 0.00 to 1.00, with a median of 0.52 in the investigated cell lines (Table I). The intrinsic radiosensitivity (IR) of these cell lines was previously determined (19). The IR was given in terms of mean inactivation dose (AUC = area under curve), and varied between 1.4 and 2.6, with a median of 2.0 (Table I).…”

“…The 96-well plate clonogenic assay was performed as previously described (19,20). In brief, the cells were harvested with trypsin/ EDTA, counted, and diluted to form a stock solution.…”

Number of Negative Points: A novel method for predicting radiosensitivity in head and neck tumor cell lines

“…The cells were grown to midlogarithmic phase and fed with fresh medium 24 h before the experiments. The 96-well plate clonogenic assay was performed as previously described (18,20,21). In brief, the cells were harvested with trypsin/EDTA, counted and diluted to a stock solution.…”

“…Nine recently established HNSCC cell lines were selected for this study to represent different parts of the in vitro radiosensitivity spectrum (Table I). The average intrinsic radiosensitivity (IR), measured with a 96-well clonogenic assay plate in a large panel of HNSCC cell lines was 1.9 for head and neck cancer of all sites (18). The cells were cultured in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium, supplemented with 2 mM glutamine, 1% non-essential amino acids, 100 IU/ml penicillin-G, 50 μg/ml streptomycin and 10% fetal bovine serum (all from Gibco, Paisly, UK).…”