Emerging clinical evidence revealed that postoperative adjuvant chemoradiotherapy (CRT) could improve the clinical outcome for resected head and neck squamous cell carcinoma in high-risk patients. The irradiation targets and doses should be determined by the primary tumor site, clinical stage, pathology reports, and the evaluation of postoperative imaging. Adjuvant concurrent CRT with cisplatin is the current standard treatment for high-risk postoperative head and neck squamous cell carcinoma patients. However, the effect of concurrent CRT with other chemotherapeutic agents and (or) epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) monoclonal antibody in these patients is inconclusive. Human papillomavirus (HPV)-positive oropharyngeal cancer has the unique biological characteristics, and the indications and treatment models of postoperative adjuvant CRT for these patients are still unclear. Further study is needed.

Patients with ataxia-telangiectasia ( A-T) syndrome were charachaterized by profound hypersensitivity to ionizing radiation in clinic. Many studies have shown that this hypersensitivity possibly attributed to ATM gene whose critical compartment was ATM kinase. So inhibitors of the ATM kinase such as caffeine, pentoxifylline, methyl xanthines and 7-hydroxystaurosporine (UCN-01) were developed and have achieved a few encouraging results in basic and clinical stuides.

Objective To investigate whether chromosome induced aberrations scored with fluorescence in situ hybridization (FISH) predict the radiosensitivity of human tumor cell lines. Methods Three human cell lines with different radiosensitivities(nasopharyngeal cell line CNE, lung adenocarcinoma cell line SPC, and breast adenocarcinoma cell line MCF 7) were used for clonogenic assay. Cells were irradiated with a dose of 1～8?Gy. Radiation induced aberration in a single chromosome (number 8) was measured at 24?h after irradiation of 2, 4 and 6?Gy.Results Radiation induced aberration in chromosome 8 reflected the radiosensitivity in CNE, SPC and MCF 7 cells 24 h after irradiation. It was associated with survival fraction at 2?Gy (r=0.96). Conclusion These results suggest that the radiation induced chromosome aberrations in interphase measured by FISH be a considerable promise for prediction of radiosensitivity in tumor cells.

(0.05)). Multivariate analysis revealed that adjuvant radiotherapy and histology of tumor significantly affected the prognosis(P=(0.045) and P=(0.009), respectively). Whereas loco-regional control was only significantly affected by adjuvant radiotherapy(P=(0.000)). CONCLUSION: Adjuvant radiotherapy and histology of tumor are the important prognostic factors in the rectal cancer patients after treatment with multimodality therapy based on surgery.

Microenviroment hypoxia is one of the common phenomenon in cancer,studies have indiacat-ed that hypoxia induces genetic instability via activating many DNA danlage-repair signal pathways,which asso-ciates with tumor invasion and resistance and chemi-radiotherapy resistivity.Here,we overview three main DNA damage-repair pathways:mismatch repair,homologous recombination and non-homologous end joining,and how hypoxia influences their mechanisms.

Objective To evaluate the prognosis for patients with squamous cell carcinoma of cervical lymph node metastases from an unknown primary site who had different clinical stages and were irradiated to different fields. Methods The clinical date of 60 patients with cervical lymph node metastatic squamous cell carcinoma from an unknown primary site(no including patients with supraclavicular node metastases) were retrospectively analyzed. Results The overall 5-year survival rates(OSR) was 68.5%, the OSR of patients with N 1,N 2 and N 3 stage were 100%, 68.0% and 40.9% respectively(? 2=7.29,P=0.026). The OSR of patients with one lateral neck, whole neck and large fields irradiation were 66.5%, 74.5% and 54.6% respectively(? 2=1.38,P =0.501). The Cox proportional hazard model showed that clinical stages of cervical lymph node had an significant effect in patients survival(P=0.032). The 5-year local control rates(LCR) 65.6%, the LCR of patients with N 1,N 2 and N 3 stage were 100%, 63.2% and 34.6% respectively(? 2=5.51, P=0.064). The LCR of patients with one lateral neck, whole neck and large fields irradiation were 87.6%, 51.0% and 72.7% respectively(? 2=2.55, P =0.279). The 5-year subsequent appearance rates of occult primary cancer(SAR) was 21.2%, the SAR of patients irradiated by small(one lateral neck or whole neck) and large fields were 23.3% and 12.5% respectively(? 2=0.52, P =0.469). Conclusions The clinical stages of cervical lymph node is an important prognostic factor for survival and the local control rates has a decreasing trend as the stage increases. The subsequent appearance rates of occult primary cancer of patients irradiated by small fields has a higher trend than its of patients irradiated by large fields, but the control rates and survival rates have no significant difference in different fields irradiated.

Objective To investigate the change in mRNA expression of hypoxia inducible factor 1? HIF 1? and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) genes in the highly differentiated nasopharyngeal squamous carcinoma (CNE) cell line during hypoxia reoxygenation.Methods CNE cells were cultured in normoxic, continuous 8 hour hypoxia ,16 hour hypoxia and 16 hour hypoxia 4 hour reoxygenation conditions respectively. Expressions of HIF 1? and VEGF genes were assessed by the reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR) technique. Results The mRNA expression of HIF 1? gene was kept constant in the different culture conditions,whereas the mRNA expression of VEGF gene increased significantly after 8 or 16 hour hypoxia and decreased after reoxygenation for 4 hours. Conclusions Hypoxia is able to induce the mRNA expression of VEGF gene in the CNE cell, but is unable to do so in HIF 1? mRNA expression. These findings suggest that VEGF upregulation induced by hypoxia be independent HIF 1a transcription.

Objective To analyze the results of neck dissection in patients who failed in cervical lymph nodes after radiotherapy for nasopharyngeal carcinoma.Methods Eighty-three patients who received neck dissection due to lymph node persistence or recurrence after definitive radiotherapy were analyzed retrospectively according to the following relevant factors: age, sex, the interval between completion of radiotherapy and surgery, rN stage, postoperative radiotherapy given or not, the adjacent tissues involved or not and the number of positive nodes. Kaplan-Meier method, Log-rank method and Cox method were used in the statistical analysis.Results The 1-, 3- and 5-year overall survival rates were 80.7%, 47.1% and 34.9%. The interval between completion of radiotherapy and surgery, postoperative radiotherapy given or not, the adjacent tissues involved or not were significantly prognostic factors in statistic analysis. Conclusions Neck dissection can be applied in the management of cervical lymph node failure in nasopharyngeal carcinoma after radiotherapy. Postoperative radiotherapy should be considered in patients with capsular invasion and/or adjacent tissue involvement.

Objective To compare the agreement among Chinese 1992, 2008 and UICC 2010 staging systems of nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) and evaluate their predictive value of radiotherapeutic prognosis.Methods 347 NPC patients without distant metastasis treated in our hospital from 2000 to 2005 were retrospectively analyzed.Every patient was categorized into T, N, and clinical stage by Chinese 1992, 2008 and UICC 2010 staging systems, respectively.Kappa value was used to evaluate the agreement among three systems.Kaplan-Meier method was used to analyze the 5-year overall survival (OS), local-free survival (LFS) and distant metastasis-free survival (DMFS), the difference between subgroup was tested by Logrank.Results The agreement of clinical stage, T and N stage between Chinese 2008 and UICC 2010 staging system was better than that of them compared to 1992 staging system, Kappa value were 0.700、0.881 and 0.722.The agreement of T stage was better than N and clinical stage among these three staging system.The difference of OS between stageⅢ and stage Ⅳ was significant in Chinese 2008 and UICC 2010 staging system (χ2=4.48,P=0.034;χ2=8.88,P=0.003), and with no different in 1992 staging system (χ2=0.40,P=0.526).There was no significant difference of LFS between T1 and T2,T2 and T3,T3 and T4 in all staging systems (χ2=1.85,0.53,0.50,P=0.174,0.467,0.479;χ2=1.25,2.10,1.99,P=0.264,0.148,0.159;χ2=0.77,0.60,0.87, P=0.381,0.441,0.350).There were no significant differencesin 1992 staging system, while there was significant differences of DMFS between N1 and N2, N2 and N3 in 2008 stage system, N1 and N2 in UICC 2010 stage system.Conclusions The predictive value of Chinese 2008 and UICC 2010 staging system for prognosis were similar, and were better than that of 1992 staging system in NPC.

Objective To investigate the effect of human lung cancer-associated fibroblasts (CAF) on the radiosensitivity of lung cancer cells when CAF is placed in direct contact co-culture with lung cancer cells.Methods Human lung CAF was obtained from fresh human lung adenocarcinoma tissue specimens by primary culture and subculture and was then identified by immunofluorescence staining.The CAF was placed in direct contact co-culture with lung cancer A549 and H1299 cells,and the effects of CAF on the radiosensitivity of A549 and H1299 cells were evaluated by colony-forming assay.Results The human lung CAF obtained by adherent culture could stably grow and proliferate,and it had specific expression of α-smooth muscle actin,vimentin,and fibroblast activation protein,but without expression of cytokeratin-18.The plating efficiency (PE,％) of A549 cells at 0 Gy irradiation was (20.0 ± 3.9) ％ when cultured alone versus (32.3 ± 5.5) ％ when co-cultured with CAF (t =3.16,P ＜ 0.05),and the PE of H1299 cells at 0 Gy irradiation was (20.6 ± 3.1) ％ when cultured alone versus (35.2 ± 2.3) ％ when co-cultured with CAF (t =6.55,P ＜0.05).The cell survival rate at 2 Gy irradiation (SF2) of A549 cells was 0.727 ±0.061 when cultured alone versus 0.782 ± 0.089 when co-cultured with CAF (t =0.88,P ＞ 0.05),and the SF2 of H1299 cells was 0.692 ±0.065 when cultured alone versus 0.782 ± 0.037 when co-cultured with CAF (t =2.08,P ＞0.05).The protection enhancement ratios of human lung CAF for A549 cells and H1299 cells were 1.29 and 1.25,respectively.Conclusions Human lung CAF reduces the radiosensitivity of lung cancer cells when placed in direct contact co-culture with them,and the radioprotective effect may be attributed to CAF promoting the proliferation of lung cancer cells.