Analysis of the expression of cytokeratins, angiogenic and proliferative patterns, and DNA content of salivary gland tumors

Abstract

Salivary gland tumors is a highly heterogeneous group that accounts for 3 to 6% of all head and neck neoplasias, with an incidence ranging from 0.4 to 13.5 cases/100,000 individuals. Due to their clinicopathologic variability, the diagnosis of these tumors becomes a real challenge even for experient pathologists, which contributes for the discrete knowledgment concerning biologic factors involved in the clinical behavior of these lesions. Therefore, the characterization of structural proteins such as cytokeratins and proliferative biomarkers, as well as the identification of new factors and receptors involved in the angiogenic process and the definition of the cellular DNA content could significantly assist the diagnosis of these neoplasias and favor an improved prognostic determination of the affected patients. In the present study, using tissue microarray and immunohistochemistry techniques, and with the help of softwares and algorithms for digital analyses, the authors aim to characterize the expression pattern of cytokeratins 5/6, 7, 10, 18 and 34²12 in 367 salivary gland tumors, also evaluating the proliferative pattern of these tumors with the molecular markers Ki67, Mcm-2 and HOXB7, as well as analyzing the tumoral angiogenic features by evaluating the expression of CD34, CD105, neuropilins-1 and -2, class 3 semaphorins A, B and F and vascular endothelium growth factor (VEGF) 165, and the cellular DNA content by image cytometry, identifying the importance of these biological variables for diagnosis and prognostic determination of patients affected by this group of lesion. (AU)