Role of EGFR as prognostic factor in head and neck cancer patients treated with surgery and postoperative radiotherapy: proposal of a new approach behind the EGFR overexpression.
Strategies to optimize EGFR-targeted therapy in head and neck cancer involve not only the selection for patients most likely to benefit but also the use of combination therapies to target the network of pathways involved in tumor growth, invasion, angiogenesis, and metastasis.
Here, we conducted a quantitative proteomics analysis to determine the molecular networks regulated by EGFR levels in HNC by specifically knocking-down EGFR and employing stable isotope labeling with amino acids in cell culture (SILAC).
This review article will discuss recent multilateral efforts to discover and validate actionable strategies that involve signaling pathways in heterogenous head and neck cancer and to overcome anti-EGFR resistance in the era of precision medicine.
A patient-derived somatic mutation in the epidermal growth factor receptor ligand-binding domain confers increased sensitivity to cetuximab in head and neck cancer.
These results suggest that the cisplatin sensitivity of head and neck cancer cells corresponds to subsequent alteration of EGFR levels following cisplatin treatment.
High EGFR expression and phosphorylated EGFR predicts poor survival in head and neck cancer patients, but does not correlate with advanced stage disease.
EGFR overexpression is not common in patients with head and neck cancer. Cell lines are not representative for the clinical situation in this indication.
Increased production of TGF-alpha and EGFR mRNA in the histologically normal mucosa of patients at risk for a primary or secondary head and neck cancer may serve both as a marker for malignant transformation and as a target for preventive therapies.
The EGFR-targeted antibody cetuximab is effective against head and neck cancer (HNSCC), but in only 15% to 20% of patients, and the variability and extent of cetuximab-mediated cellular immunity is not fully understood.
The epithelial growth factors, EGF and TGF-alpha, which share the same receptor, EGFR, may play a pivotal role in the development and maintenance of head and neck cancer; preliminary studies concerning TGF-beta and IL-2 are inconclusive.
In this study, we investigated the cooperative role of SAHA and the EGFR tyrosine kinase inhibitor gefitinib in both HPV-positive and HPV-negative HNC cell lines.