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We reinvestigated rearrangements occurring in region q13 of chromosome 11 aiming to: (i) describe heterogeneity of the observed structural alterations, (ii) estimate amplicon size and (iii) identify of oncogenes involved in laryngeal cancer progression as potential targets for therapy. The study included 17 cell lines derived from laryngeal cancers and 34 specimens from primary laryngeal tumors. The region 11q13 was analyzed by fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH), array comparative genomic hybridization (aCGH) and gene expression microarray. Next, quantitative real time PCR was used for chosen genes to confirm results from aCGH and gene expression microarray. The observed pattern of aberrations allows to distinguish three ways, in which gain and amplification involving 11q13 region may occur: formation of a homogeneously staining region; breakpoints in/near 11q13, which lead to the three to sevenfold increase of the copy number of 11q13 region; the presence of additional copies of the whole chromosome 11. The minimal altered region of gain and/or amplification was limited to ~1.8 Mb (chr.11:69,395,184-71,209,568) and comprised mostly 11q13.3 band which contain 12 genes. Five, out of these genes (CCND1, ORAOV1, FADD, PPFIA1, CTTN) had higher expression levels in comparison to healthy controls. Apart from CCND1 gene, which has an established role in pathogenesis of head and neck cancers, CTTN, ORAOV1 and FADD genes appear to be oncogene-candidates in laryngeal cancers, while a function of PPFIA1 requires further studies.

Despite the well-defined role of autologous haematopoietic stem cell transplantation (autoHCT) in the treatment of patients with relapsed or refractory Hodgkin lymphoma (HL), relapse remains the main cause of transplant failure. We retrospectively evaluated long-term outcome and prognostic factors affecting survival of 132 patients with refractory (n = 89) or relapsed HL (n = 43) treated with autoHCT following modified BEAM. With a median follow-up of 68 months, the 10-year overall survival (OS) and progression-free survival (PFS) were 76 and 66 %, respectively. The 10-year cumulative incidence of second malignancies was 7 %. In multivariate analysis, age ≥45 years, more than one salvage regimens and disease status at transplant worse than CR were factors predictive for poor OS. In relapsed HL, age at transplant, response duration (<12 vs. ≥12 months) and the number of salvage regimens were independent predictors for PFS. In the refractory setting, disease status at autoHCT and the number of salvage regimens impacted PFS. The number of risk factors was inversely correlated with PFS in both relapsed and refractory HL (p = 0.003 and <0.001, respectively). The median PFS for patients with >1 risk factor in the relapsed and refractory setting was 5 and 11 months, respectively, in comparison with the median PFS not reached for patients with 0-1 risk factor in both settings. We conclude that high proportion of patients with relapsed/refractory HL can be cured with autoHCT. However, the presence of two or more risk factors helps to identify poor prognosis patients who may benefit from novel treatment strategies.