Nestin expression is associated with relapses in head and neck lesions

• Autor(a) principal: Pérez-Sayáns, Mario
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Outros Autores: Chamorro-Petronacci, Cintia M., Baltazar, Fátima, Pires, Fabio Ramoa, Ínsua, Ángel, Suárez-Quintanilla, Juan A., Suárez-Peñaranda, José M.
• Tipo de documento: Artigo
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/1822/73579
• topic: Head and neck neoplasms; Nestin; Immunohistochemistry; Recurrence; Science & Technology

Background: The aim was to investigate the clinical significance of nestin immunohistochemical expression in head and neck area lesions and to study its role in patient survival and recurrence. Methods: 39 (44.3%) nasosinus, 37 (42%) major salivary gland (6 submandibular and 31 parotid) and 12 (13.6%) oral cavity lesions of paraffin-embedded samples were retrospectively included. Results: The expression was categorized into grades, negative for 55 (62.5%) cases, grade 1 in 10 cases (11.4%), grade 2 in 12 cases (13.6%), and grade 3 in 11 cases (12.5%); 100% of pleomorphic adenomas were positive for nestin with grade 3 intensity, 100% of polyps and inverted papillomas were negative (<i>p</i> < 0.001). The lowest estimate of disease-free-survival (DFS) was for grade 1 expression, with 50 months, confidence interval (CI): 95% 13.3–23.9 months and the highest for grade 3 expression, 167.9 months (CI: 95% 32.1–105 months; Log-Rank = 14.846, <i>p</i> = 0.002). ROC (receiver operating characteristic) curves revealed that the positivity for nestin (+/−) in relation to malignancy, presented a sensitivity of 50.98%, a specificity of 81.08%, with an area under the curve of 0.667 (<i>p</i> = 0.009). Conclusions: Nestin could be a useful marker to detect the presence of stem cells in head and neck tumors that have a role in tumor initiation and progression.