Effect of induction chemotherapy on changes of laminin and syndecan expression in oral squamous cell carcinomas: a prospective, randomized, clinicopathologic and immunohistochemical study.

Sixty patients with tumors of the floor of the mouth or of the tongue (T2N0-1-2M0) were randomized into three treatment groups. The first two groups participated in low-dose inductive chemotherapy, surgery, and then radiotherapy, whereas the third control group underwent only surgery and radiotherapy. In all three groups, studies were made of the stage, grade, sex, localization, extents of expression of the pretreatment laminin and syndecan-1 and the cancer specific survival rate, and the correlations among these. The response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy was assessed by means of a method that we developed, involving measurement of the degree of histologic regression observed in response to chemotherapy. Immunohistochemical methods were applied to investigate the changes in degree of expression of laminin and syndecan-1 in response to the medication and their correlations with the survival. As concerns the overall tumorfree survival rate, a significant difference was not found between the two chemotherapeutic groups. However, there was a significant difference between the survival indices of those who participated in cytostatic treatment (70%) and the control group (40%). In the clinical and immunohistochemical examinations, the initial laminin and syndecan-1 levels obtained from biopsy samples could be used as prognostic factors. Our model measuring the extent of histologic regression clearly demonstrated that the survival indices of the patients who responded to the neoadjuvant cytostatic treatment with adequate tissue regression were better than those of the patients who responded to the treatment to only a decreased extent or not at all. The changes in the expressions of laminin and syndecan-1 in response to cystostatic treatment proved to be important predictive factors. The increase or stagnation of these clearly forecast a good prognosis, whereas their decrease was a definite indication of poor prognosis.