To evaluate the clinical impact of cachexia, defined by the combination of albumin and C-reactive protein levels, in patients with unresectable locally advanced head and neck squamous cell carcinomas who received chemoradiotherapy in a phase II trial of JCOG0706.
Hence the study intended to evaluate the preoperative serum CRP levels in oral squamous cell carcinoma (OSCC) patients and to analyse its relationship with the clinicopathologic characteristics.
We used PCR-RFLP technique to explore -765G>C PTGS2 gene polymorphism, colorimetric analysis for cyclooxygenase-2 activity in skin tissue and immunoturbidimetric assay for CRP serum levels in 174 patients with non-melanoma skin cancer [54 patients with basal cell carcinoma (BCC) and 120 patients with squamous cell carcinoma (SCC)] and 80 healthy subjects.
The CRP association did not differ significantly by histology, follow-up time, or smoking status, but was most apparent for squamous cell carcinomas (OR, 2.92; 95% CI, 1.30 to 6.54), 2 to 5 years before lung cancer diagnosis (OR, 2.33; 95% CI, 1.24 to 4.39), and among former smokers (OR, 2.48; 95% CI, 1.53 to 4.03) and current smokers (OR, 1.90; 95% CI, 1.06 to 3.41).