Kliniken &… Kliniken Kopfklinik Hals-, Nasen- und… Forschung AG Experimentelle und… Working Group Oral…

Working group Oral Cavity Cancer

Head and neck cancers belong to the most common malignancies worldwide and the oral cavity is one of the mostly affected subsites within this heterogeneous group of different tumor entities including squamous cell carcinomas (OSCC) and salivary gland carcinomas among others. Metastases and locoregional disease recurrence are the main predicting factors for adverse clinical outcome and oral cancer is responsible for about 1-2% of all cancer related deaths in developed countries. For OSCC 5-year survival rates having remained at 40-60% over the last decades despite interdisciplinary multi-modal treatment. Although, the introduction of immune checkpoint inhibition has brought new therapeutic options for patients with recurrent or metastatic head and neck squamous cell carcinoma (HNSCC), accurate biomarkers allowing for distinct risk-stratification and individualization of therapy and follow-up for patients are still limited. Such markers might help to identify patients at risk of tumor progression, who may benefit from a more intensive interdisciplinary multi-modality therapy.

Therefore, our working group focuses on the investigation of prognostic markers for oral cancers using novel techniques like digital pathology analysis of tissue samples and ex-vivo culture models in a large cohort of different surgically treated oral malignancies.

Group Members

Prof. Dr. Dr. Christian Freudlsperger (working group leader)

Dr. Dr. Julius Moratin (immuno-oncology)

Dr. Karl Semmelmayer (data analysis)

Dr. Sonja Steen (digital pathology)

 

Doctoral student

Dr. Leif Graffy

Prognostic biomarkers in salivary gland carcinomas of the oral cavity

Dynamics of immune-checkpoint protein expression in OSCC

Moratin, J., K. Metzger, A. Safaltin, E. Herpel, J. Hoffmann, K. Freier, J. Hess and D. Horn (2019). "Upregulation of PD-L1 and PD-L2 in neck node metastases of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma." Head Neck 41(8): 2484-2491.

Metzger, K., J. Moratin, K. Freier, J. Hoffmann, K. Zaoui, M. Plath, F. Stogbauer, C. Freudlsperger, J. Hess and D. Horn (2021). "A six-gene expression signature related to angiolymphatic invasion is associated with poor survival in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma." Eur Arch Otorhinolaryngol 278(4): 1199-1207.

Moratin, J., A. Mock, S. Obradovic, K. Metzger, C. Flechtenmacher, K. Zaoui, S. Frohling, D. Jager, J. Krauss, J. Hoffmann, K. Freier, D. Horn, J. Hess and C. Freudlsperger (2021). "Digital Pathology Scoring of Immunohistochemical Staining Reliably Identifies Prognostic Markers and Anatomical Associations in a Large Cohort of Oral Cancers." Front Oncol 11: 712944.