Abstract 3790: Circulating tumor cells at disease recurrence in patients with head and neck cancer after curative therapy

Abstract

Abstract Background: Circulating tumor cell (CTC) has been prognostic and predictive in numerous types of cancer; however, its role in early diagnosis of relapse remains unclear. Methods: Eighty-six patients were prospectively enrolled between March 2015 and June 2016. Among these patients, 51 head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC) patients had suspicious recurrent lesion(s), whilst 35 HNSCC patients were newly diagnosed. CTC test was performed by negative selection strategy and CD45-negative and EpCAM-positive cells were identified as CTCs. Biopsy on suspicious lesion(s) and CTC analysis were performed simultaneously. We analyzed the differences of CTC numbers among HNSCC patients with true recurrence, biopsy-negative and newly-diagnosed. Results: Mean±standard deviation(SD) of CTC numbers in baseline at diagnosis (n=35), true recurrence (n=40) and biopsy-negative (n=11) groups were 41.98±32.02, 81.75±64.91 and 16.55±6.82 cells/mL, respectively. The difference of CTC numbers among three groups was significant (P <0.001). CTCs (mean±SD) among different failure types were 110.89±84.69, 105.67±50.77, 73.31±37.82 and 59.11±54.09 in lung metastasis, second primary tumor, extrapulmonary metastasis and locoregional recurrence respectively and significantly different (P = 0.049). Also, CTC numbers between first cancer (baseline at diagnosis) and second primary tumor were different (P = 0.004). Conclusion: CTCs numbers are significantly higher in true recurrence than the biopsy-negative group when a patient had a lesion suspected to be a recurrence. CTC test may be useful to help distinguish true recurrence in HNSCC patients after curative therapy. Citation Format: Jason Chia-Hsun Hsieh, Ting-Hsiuan Yeh, Hung-Ming Wang, Yung-Chang Lin, Nina Ming-Jung Lin, Siou-Ru Ye, Jane Ying-Chieh Lee, Min-Hsien Wu. Circulating tumor cells at disease recurrence in patients with head and neck cancer after curative therapy [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the American Association for Cancer Research Annual Meeting 2017; 2017 Apr 1-5; Washington, DC. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2017;77(13 Suppl):Abstract nr 3790. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2017-3790