Plasma sICAM-1 correlates with tumor volume before primary radiochemotherapy of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients
Article Category: Research Article
Publicado en línea: 13 dic 2022
Páginas: 501 - 507
Recibido: 31 ago 2022
Aceptado: 29 sept 2022
DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/raon-2022-0043
© 2022 Kerstin Clasen, Stefan Welz, Heidrun Faltin, Daniel Zips, Franziska Eckert, published by Sciendo
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Background
Biomarkers are of major interest to optimize diagnosis, prognosis and to guide treatment in head and neck cancer patients. Especially blood-based biomarkers appear promising as they can be easily collected and repeatedly analyzed during the course of radiochemotherapy.
Patients and methods
At first, for a broad overview, multiple immune markers were evaluated in six plasma samples of three head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients at the beginning and the end of radio-chemotherapy. In this pre-selection, the soluble Intercellular Adhesion Molecule 1 (sICAM-1) appeared most promising. Thus, this marker was measured in multiple samples (n = 86) during treatment and follow-up in a cohort of eleven patients and correlated with tumor features and clinical data.
Results
We found a strong correlation between the initial levels of sICAM-1 in the plasma and the gross tumor volumes of the primary tumor and the involved lymph nodes. However, during the course of treatment no systematic dynamics could be identified. Toxicity or infections did not seem to influence sICAM-1 concentrations.
Conclusions
sICAM-1 appears to reflect the pre-treatment total tumor burden (primary tumor and involved lymph nodes) in head and neck tumor patients. However, it does not seem to be a dynamic marker reflecting response during radiochemotherapy. Thus, if our findings are confirmed in future, sICAM-1 could be used as a staging marker: if high sICAM-1 levels but low tumor burden are found it might be reasonable to intensify staging investigations to rule out further, yet undetected, tumor sites.