Table 3 Micrometastases Detection in pN0 and pN+ Patients in Esophageal Cancer and HNSCC

From: Assessment and Clinical Significance of Micrometastases in Lymph Nodes of Head and Neck Cancer Patients Detected by E48 (Ly-6D) Quantitative Reverse Transcription-Polymerase Chain Reaction

Source year

No. of patients

Upstaged patientsa

Marker

Method

No. of molecular or IHC-positive LN per patient

Esophageal carcinoma

 Glickman et al, 1999

78 pN0

26%

AE1/AE3

IHC

1–4

 Hosch et al, 2000

54 pN0

56%

Ber-EP4

IHC

 
 

72 pN1

82%

   

 Kano et al, 2000

3 pN0

100%

SCC antigen

IHC

1–5

 

11 pN1

91%

  

1–8

HNSCC

 McDonald et al, 1998

16 pN0

63%

CK5

RT-PCR

1–8

 

8 pN+b

75%

  

1–8

 Cortesina et al, 2000

5 pN0

100%

MET

Quantitative RT-PCR

2–5

 

15 pN1-2c

33%

   

 This study

23 pN0

22%

E48

Quantitative RT-PCR

1–2

 

18 pN+

56%

  

1–6

  1. a% of patients with molecular or immunostaining tumor-positive but histopathologically tumor-negative lymph nodes.
  2. bN+: 1–3 histopathologic tumor-positive lymph nodes.
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